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AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 



" Verbum est sicut Hortus, qui Paradisus Caelestis vocandus est, 
in quo cupediae et delicias omnis generis sunt, cupedise ex fructibus et 
deliciae ex floribus, in cujns medio sunt Arbores vita?, juxta quas 
fontes aquae vivse: et circum Hortum sunt arbores silvse." 

Swedenborg: Vera Christiana Rtligio, n. 259. 



clc^ JJU*. , ?->£•*. wjux»~~. 



OBSERVATIONS 



ON THE 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS, 



BY A LAYMAN, 



■^itft 









CHICAGO : 

HORACE P. CHANDLER, 
18G7. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18G6, by 

HORACE P. CHANDLER, 

Tn the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of the United States 
for the Northern District of Illinois. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 




TO H. P. a 



It is to gratify you that the following remarks, a por- 
tion of which have already appeared in a religious 
magazine, are now presented to the public in this form. 
They make no pretension to theological learning, nor 
even to originality. They are simply the suggestions 
of one who has been led to investigate for himself in 
relation to some truths that are usually taken for 
granted, or are rejected without any substantial reason. 
Many educated men have seasons of doubt in regard to 
the authenticity and genuineness of the gospel record. 
" How do we know," Mr. Choate once exclaimed, " that 
these works were written by the men whose names they 
bear ? " Upon a somewhat careful examination of the 
present state of the controversy, as exhibited in the 
writings of the able and learned and generally candid 
men who have discussed it, the conclusion seems more 
than reasonable, that the historical or external eviden- 
ces of the Christian system are reliable. But it is 
important to understand clearly at the outset, how 
the investigation of this question should be conducted. 
Those who seek to apply a kind of evidence that is out 

[y] 



VI PREFACE. 

of place, those who deny that the matter is attended 
with any difficulties, those who merely indulge in sneers 
and denunciation, do the cause of truth no good ; they 
weaken rather than strengthen a belief in Christianity. 

Persons who are disposed to investigate the subject 
in a candid spirit may rely on two things. First, that 
such a course is not attended with any danger ; it will 
strengthen their faith in the sacred writings ; and, sec- 
ondly, they will find the examination remarkably inter- 
esting. The standard works of Dr. Lardner, Dr. Paley, 
Mr. Norton, Dr. Palfrey, and the more recent volume 
of Mr. Fisher are attractive reading ; and the View of 
the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion by 
Soame Jenyns, Leslie's Method w r ith the Deists, and 
even Watson's replies to Gibbon and Paine, with numer- 
ous other similar works, are excellent specimens of con- 
troversial discussion. But to those who are led forward 
on a higher plane, and undertake a careful examination 
of the sacred writings themselves, by the light of the 
doctrines taught by Emanuel Swedenborg, the lines of 
Milton will have an added power : — 

How charming is divine philosophy ! 

Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose; 

But musical as is Apollo's lute, 

And a perpetual feast of nectar' d sweets, 

Where no crude surfeit reigns. 

Boston, Christmas, 1866. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
Testimony of the Evangelists 1 

Legal Evidence not applicable 3 

Supernatural Origin of Christianity 7 

Tone of Existing Skepticism and Unbelief 8 

Bishop Colenso 10 

Strauss's Life of Christ 11 

Kenan's Life of Christ 11 

The Historical Question 16 

The Fourth Gospel 17 

The Synoptical Gospels 29 

Statement of Mr. Xorton 30 

Effort of Modern Skeptics 37 

Mythical Theory of Strauss 38 

Legendary Theory of Kenan 42 

Swedenborg's Doctrine of an Internal Sense .... 4.5 

Confidence of those who receive it 47 

Historical Evidence Unanswerable but not Satisfac- 
tory 47 

Low Estimate of the Character of the Gospels ... 47 
Second Coming of the Lord 52 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

The Science of Correspondence 55 

Not Mere Symbolism 59 

A Universal Language 60 

The Scriptures written on this Principle 60 

This Science known to the Ancients 65 

The Most Ancient Church 66 

Doctrine of the Early Fathers 68 

Objections to the Internal Sense of the Word ... 73 

Early Opposition to Christianity 73 

Mr. Palfrey's Account of Josephus 77 

Statement of Mr. Macaulay 79 

Difficulties in the Literal Sense of the Bible ... 80 

More Light to be expected 83 

Character of Swedenborg . 84 

Essays of Mr. Parsons 89 



List of the Works of Swedenborg 103 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 



It is just twenty years since Mr. Greenleaf, the 
Roy all Professor of Law in Harvard University, 
published his Examination of the Four Evangel- 
ists, by the Rules of Evidence Administered in 
Courts of Justice. The learned author had pre- 
viously obtained an enviable reputation by his 
Treatise on Evidence, which soon became a 
standard authority in the legal profession, and 
still maintains its position as one of the most 
elaborate, accurate and satisfactory works that 
has ever been written on the subject. In the 
Work first above mentioned it was not the au- 
thor's design to enter upon any general exam- 
ination of the evidences of Christianity, but to 
confine the inquiry to the testimony of the four 
Evangelists, bringing their narratives to the tests 

l m 



2 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

to which other evidence is subjected in human 
tribunals. Professor Greenleaf entertained the 
opinion, that, in subjecting the testimony of the 
sacred writers to these tests, one of the strongest 
foundations of Christian faith could be laid, and 
one that would be eminently satisfactory to men 
who are trained in habits of severe logic by the 
actual character of their daily avocations. In 
this he was not singular. Mr. Justice Story of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
before him Mr. Chief Justice Parsons of Mas- 
sachusetts, used to express themselves strongly 
in the same direction. Indeed, the veneration 
of judges and lawyers for the legal rules of 
evidence not seldom renders them skeptical of 
any facts that cannot be established according 
to those rules ; and they sometimes apply them 
to subjects where they are really an obstruc- 
tion rather than an aid in the establishment of 
truth. 

It is doubtful whether any legal writer could 
have illustrated his idea with greater ability 
than Mr. Greenleaf. A lawyer of great emi- 
nence, successful alike in the advocacy of causes 
before juries and in the arguments of questions 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 3 

of law before the judges ; possessed of great legal 
acumen ; thoroughly read in his profession ; hav- 
ing the rare faculty of expressing his ideas with 
remarkable clearness and force, and withal a man 
of deeply religious sensibilities, he applied him- 
self to the task he had proposed as the crowning 
effort of his life, with the greatest interest and 
the most earnest zeal. 

The work was a failure. Not in style or 
method, nor yet in argumentation ; but essen- 
tially a failure in this, that it did not meet the 
issue ; or rather, it was an attempt to reconcile 
irreconcilable things — to make use of certain 
principles in a class of subjects to which they 
have no sort of application. 

The common law rules of evidence, as former- 
ly administered in courts of justice, are many of 
them essentially absurd when considered in the 
present state of jurisprudence and civil polity. 
They have grown up from, or grown out of, a 
state of semi-barbarism. They have been modi- 
fied considerably by the results of experience 
and by increasing sense in judicial investiga- 
tions. But they were to a certain extent arbi- 
trary, irreconcilable, inconsistent, and not seldom 



4 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

absurd. The author of Amelia, no mean author- 
ity on this very point, declared that no branch of 
the law was more bulky, more full of confusion 
and contradiction, and almost of absurdity, than 
the law of evidence. A great many able men 
have said things equally strong. Mr. Bentham, 
as is well known, devoted his great talents espe- 
cially to an exposition of the absurdities of this 
branch of jurisprudence. In treating of the arti- 
ficial rules that had been adopted in various 
countries for the exclusion of certain kinds of 
testimony in courts of justice, he declared, that 
the divergence from natural equity had been 
complete, and stated it as his belief, that, if all 
the grounds of exclusion were collected into one 
from the various systems, including the Gentoo 
and Chinese, no witness in any cause could pos- 
sibly be examined at all. And it may be here 
remarked, that since Mr. Greenleaf 's day, most 
important and radical changes in the rules of 
evidence have been introduced in England and 
America. These alterations have been most 
strongly opposed by able lawyers, who saw in 
them nothing but evil ; although the practical 
effect has been to diminish litigation, aid in the 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 5 

establishment of justice and facilitate the trial 
of causes : and, it may be safely said, that the 
universal sense of the bench and the bar is now 
in favor of the changes that have been made. In 
the light of these recent changes, and of the 
experience under them, it is easy to see that the 
application of the old rules of evidence to aid in 
the establishment and defence of Christian truth, 
must result in failure, inasmuch as the subject 
is capable of clearer, more satisfactory and con- 
sistent treatment, and is rather weakened than 
strengthened by a course like this. 

For instance, Mr. Greenleaf lays down the law 
in relation to the admissibility and proof of 
ancient writings with great simplicity and ample 
learning; but when he undertakes to make the 
application of these principles to the writings 
of the Evangelists, how does the case stand? 
Where are the ancient writings ? Where are 
even the copies of those writings of a character 
suitable to be proved in a court of justice, and 
who are the witnesses to identify them ? " The 
first inquiry," he says, " when an ancient docu- 
ment is offered in evidence in our courts is, 
whether it is found in the place where, and 



6 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 



under the care of persons with whom, such writ- 
ings might naturally and reasonably be expected 
to be found. If they come from such a place 
and bear no evident marks of forgery, the law 
presumes that they are genuine and they are to 
be admitted to be read in evidence, unless the 
opposing party is able successfully to impeach 
them." Now suppose we apply this rule, where 
will it land us ? What ancient writings can be 
produced ? In what control are they found ? 
Where have they been kept ? Not a scrap of 
any thing exists that could by any possibility 
be admitted in a court of justice under this rule. 
Nobody doubts the fact that there was a man 
named Julius Caesar and that he wrote a famous 
book ; but it would puzzle a lawyer of more 
acuteness and learning than Mr. Greenleaf to 
prove this in a court of justice by the established 
rules of evidence. When general historical facts 
are alluded to in the courts, they are sometimes 
admissible as matters known to the court, but 
not as facts capable of proof as you would show 
the title to an estate. Or, as Mr. Roscoe quaint- 
ly puts it, general history seems only to be used 
to refresh the memory of the jury on notorious 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 7 

facts, which require no evidence at all. 1 In 
truth this attempt and all attempts to sustain 
the Christian system on any such principles have 
a strong tendency to weaken the cause, by lead- 
ing men who cannot fail to see the fallacy, to 
suppose that the evidence fails to support the 
case, when in truth the evidence is not applicable 
to the case. It neither proves it nor disproves 
it. It has nothing to do with it. We allude to 
the point thus distinctly, because it is not un- 
common to hear lawyers and judges speak of the 
subject in a watery way, as though the Christian 
system could be proved by the rules of evidence 
as administered in courts of justice, the direct 
tendency of which is, not only to confuse the 
mind of the unbeliever, but in fact to lower the 
character of the proofs on which he must rely. 
Professor Greenleaf performed his task with abil- 
ity, but there never was an instance where the 
maxim was more applicable — Ne sutor ultra 
crepidam. 

A work lias been recently published by Mr. 
Fisher, the Professor of Church History in Yale 
College, on the Supernatural Origin of Chris- 

1 Roscoe's Nisi Prius, Evidence, 179. 



8 AUTHENTICITY OP THE GOSPELS. 

tianity, 1 which is not only written with rare 
clearness and power, but with a degree of candor 
and fairness that are somewhat unusual in works 
of this description. It exhibits the present state 
of the controversy, and shows conclusively, that 
the church is struggling with difficulties of an 
appalling character. Mere denunciation will not 
do. The character of the men who are now 
attacking the supernatural origin of Christianity 
— the ability displayed in this attack — the learn- 
ing that is brought to bear — are such, that those 
who rely on external or historical evidences as 
the foundation of their faith feel the necessity 
of more than usual exertion. They are really 
alarmed and they have reason to be alarmed. In 
the first place, as Mr. Fisher distinctly admits, 
the tone of the existing skepticism and unbelief is 
in remarkable contrast with that of other periods 
of the past. It is not disgraced by ribaldry. 
" The writers are men whose characters and 
lives forbid the idea that their unbelief is in- 
tended as an excuse for licentiousness." " In 

1 Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, with special 
reference to the theories of Eenan, Strauss and the Tubingen School. 
By Rev. George P. Fisher, M.A., Professor of Church History in 
Yale College. New York: 1866. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 9 

contrast with the past, unbelief is oftener now an 
infection than a wilful attack. There are more 
at present who can be truly said to be afflicted 
with doubt. Just place Paine's Age of Reason 
by the side of Renan's newly published Life of 
Christ ! The difference of the old infidelity from 
the new is instantly felt by the dullest ob- 
server." He also admits, that " the comparative 
strength of the infidel party in our times is un- 
derrated by not a few even of Christian teach- 
ers." He alludes to " the subtler form which 
skepticism has assumed ; " " though less tangible 
and pugnacious, it is more diffused, like an. at- 
mosphere." " A large number of the leaders 
of opinion on matters outside of the sphere of 
religion, are adherents, more or less outspoken, 
of the skeptical school." " Infidelity appears in 
better dress and better company than of old ; it 
takes on the function of the educator and social 
reformer; it prefers a compromise with Christi- 
anity to a noisy crusade against it." 

It may be remarked in this connection, that 
some of the ablest attacks on the received doc- 
trines of the Roman Catholic and Protestant 
churches have come from persons high in eccle- 



10 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

siastical authority. Besides the famous Essays 
and Reviews, and Renan's remarkable Life of 
Christ, the recent work of Bishop Colenso is cer- 
tainly a severe blow at received opinions, for he 
deliberately announces most important discover- 
ies of criticism bearing upon historical theology, 
nothing less than evidences that the first six 
books of the Bible — the corner-stones of the 
whole Canon — were not written by their sup- 
posed authors and are not historically true, 
much less divinely inspired and infallible. Bish- 
op Colenso sums up the results of his work thus, 
as an accumulation of evidences: — " All the ar- 
guments drawn from an examination of the Penta- 
teuch point in one direction. There is literally 
nothing in these books distinctly indicative of 
Mosaic authorship. The whole force of the argu- 
ment for that authorship rests upon tradition, 
and may be referred back to the opinion of the 
Jews who lived nearly a thousand years after the 
date assigned to Moses. It is not a question of 
balanced internal evidence, but a case where there 
is a host of indications, all tending to show diver- 
sity of authorship, and late date, and none discov- 
erable by all the ingenuity yet brought to bear 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 11 

upon the subject, which tends decidedly the other 
way ; and the supporters of the traditional view 
will be found to be constantly occupied, not in 
producing internal evidence to show that Moses 
did write the Pentateuch, but in trying to ac- 
count for the existence, on the assumption of 
his authorship, of so much internal evidence to 
the contrary." 1 

Mr. Fisher considers the question of the his- 
torical reality of scriptural miracles as involving 
the whole claim of Christianity to be a reve- 
lation. " Revelation and miracle are insepar- 
able from each other." The Life of Christ by 
Strauss, he adds, is simply an elaborate attempt 
to set aside miracles by propounding some hy- 
potheses more plausible than the old exploded 
theory of a wilful deception on the part of the 
early disciples. The Life of Christ by Renan is 
likewise little more than an effort to account for 
Christ and Christianity and the Christian Scrip- 
tures, without giving credence to miraculous 
events. We shall not stop here to consider the 

1 See the remarkable work of Frances Power Cobbe, entitled 
Broken Lights: An Inquiry into the Present Condition and Future 
Prospects of Religious Faith. Boston: 1864. Page 133. 



12 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

error, for so we regard it, of the admission that 
the whole question turns on the authenticity of 
the miracles. This is the usual Protestant view ; 
and the prominence given to that kind of evi- 
dence is nothing new. He regards the principal 
question in the controversy with unbelief, as an 
historical one. " We should make it our first 
aim to substantiate the great facts which are 
recorded in the New Testament, and which 
formed the pith and marrow of the apostles' 
testimony. We must meet the skeptic on the 
ordinary level of historical investigation, and 
bring before him the proof that the Gospel mir- 
acles were actually performed, substantially as 
these histories of the New Testament narrate." 
To this question, as one of a purely historic 
fact, the author applies himself with ability, 
learning and success. To New Churchmen there 
are other and more important considerations 
relating to the spiritual sense of the sacred writ- 
ings. They believe them to be true because 
the internal sense demonstrates them to be so. 
But still the merely external argument, the 
proof of this truth as we prove other facts, is 
important and interesting. It is desirable that 



- AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 13 

a certain class of skeptics should be met on their 
own ground and should be treated fairly in a 
discussion of the subject upon its merits, as in 
the examination of any other event of the past. 
It is not intended to state the argument here, 
much less to allude to the proofs at any length. 
But, upon a careful examination of them, the 
conclusion is irresistible, that, as a purely his- 
torical question, the genuineness of the gospels 
is as well established as any matter relating to 
the history of the past. 

Mr. Fisher regards the gospel of John as one 
of the main pillars of historical Christianity. 
The profoundest minds in the church, he says, 
from Clement of Alexandria to Luther, and from 
Luther to Niebuhr, have expressed their sense 
of the singular charm and surpassing value of 
this gospel. Now, the genuineness of this gospel 
has, in recent times, been seriously impugned. 
It was denied to be the work of John by indi- 
vidual skeptics at the close of the last century. 
But this attack did not attract much attention. 
Nor did the question excite serious discussion 
until Bretschneider published (in 1820) his 
Probabilia. A more serious assault has recently 



14 AUTHENTICITY OP THE GOSPELS. 

been made by the critics of the Tubingen school, 
and there is now existing a most earnest contro- 
versy on this very point. The objecting critics 
insist that there was a radical difference and 
hostility between the Jewish and the Gentile 
types of Christianity, — between the party of the 
church that adhered to Peter and the original 
disciples, and the party that adhered to Paul 
and his doctrine : they ascribe several books of 
the New Testament to the effort made at a later 
day to bridge over this gulf. The Acts of the 
Apostles, they argue, proceeds from this motive, 
and is a designed distortion and misrepresen- 
tation of events connected with the conflict about 
the rights of the Gentile converts. The fourth 
gospel is a product of the same pacifying ten- 
dency. It was written, they say, about the mid- 
dle of the second century by a Christian of 
Gentile birth, who assumed the name of John, 
in order to give an apostolic sanction to his 
high theological platform, in which love takes 
the place of faith and the Jewish system is 
shown to be fulfilled, and so abolished by the 
offering of Christ, the true Paschal Lamb. 
What then is the evidence of the genuineness 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 15 

of this gospel ? How do we know that it was 
really written by the beloved disciple of the 
Lord ? Of course, there is nothing like imme- 
diate or positive proof, any more than there is 
of the Commentaries of Caesar. There is no 
original manuscript nor any copy which Mr. 
Greenleaf could bring into court. Nor is this 
the kind of evidence required by the nature of 
the case. Indeed, anything of the sort if of- 
fered would at once be rejected as an impu- 
dent forgery. 

In the first place ? nobody disputes the fact of 
the universal reception of the fourth gospel as 
genuine in the last quarter of the second cen- 
tury. At that time it was held in every part 
of Christendom to be the work of the Apostle 
John. The prominent witnesses are Tertullian 
in North Africa, Clement in Alexandria, and 
Irenaeus in Gaul. Of the latter it should be 
remarked, that he was a Greek, born in Asia 
Minor in the year 140. Coming to Lyons and 
holding there first the office of Presbyter and 
then, in the year 178, that of Bishop, he was 
familiar with the church in both the East and 
the West. Moreover, — and this is a great point, 



18 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

— he had in his youth known and conversed with 
Polycarp of Smyrna, the immediate disciple of 
John, and retained a vivid recollection of the 
person and words of this remarkable man. 

Now Irenaeus not only testifies to the uni- 
versal acceptance in the church of the fourth 
gospel, but also argues — and this is certainly 
a suggestive fact to New Churchmen — that 
there must be four and only four gospels to 
stand as pillars of the truth. Then, there was 
Origen, whose career terminated near the mid- 
dle of the third century, but he was born but 
fifteen years before the end of the second, and 
of Christian parents. Then we have the Canon 
of Muratori, or the list of canonical books found 
in an old manuscript in the Milan library, which 
is certainly not later than the end of the second 
century, and the ancient Syriac version of the 
New Testament, the Peshito, having a like an- 
tiquity. In both of these monuments the gospel 
of John is found in its proper place. Polycrates, 
the Bishop of Ephesus, in the year 196, alludes 
distinctly to the fourth gospel, and quotes from 
it. Tatian, supposed to have been a pupil of 
Justin Martyr, although he swerved from his 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 17 

teaching, quotes repeatedly from John. Con- 
temporary with Tatian was Theophilus, Bishop 
of Antioch in 169. He describes John's gospel 
as a part of the Holy Scriptures, and John him- 
self as a writer guided by the Holy Spirit. Go- 
ing back to the first half of the second century 
the writer most entitled to consideration is Jus- 
tin Martyr, who was born in the year 89 ; and 
although a specious argument is made, that he 
quotes from other gospels than the four now 
regarded as canonical, this is fairly shown to be 
an error. 

An important part of the external evidence for 
the genuineness of the fourth gospel, is the tacit 
or express acknowledgment of the fact by the 
various heretical parties of the second century ; 
and the author states as an important consid- 
eration, that the Artemonites, the party of Uni- 
tarians who came forward in Rome near the end 
of the second century, did not think of disputing 
the apostolical origin of that gospel to which 
their opponents were indebted for their strong- 
est weapons. The great doctrinal battle of the 
church in the second century was with Gnos- 
ticism. The struggle with this first heresy of 



18 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

a Gentile origin began early. The germs of it 
are distinctly perceived in the apostolic age. At 
the middle of the second century the conflict 
with these elaborate systems of error was raging. 
By Justin, the Valentinians, the Basilideans, 
the Marcionites and other Gnostic sects are de- 
nounced as warmly as by Irenaeus and his con- 
temporaries. And by both of the parties in this 
wide-spread conflict by the Gnostics and the 
church theologians, the fourth gospel is accepted 
as the work of John without a lisp of opposition 
or doubt. 

But more important, perhaps, than all the 
isolated passages of the early writers, is the 
argument drawn from the moral impossibility 
of discrediting, in such a case, the tradition of 
the early church. Upon this point the argu- 
ment is very interesting. We quote a portion 
of it : — 

" Few persons who have not specially attended 
to the subject are aware how long a period is 
sometimes covered by a very few links of tradi- 
tional testimony. Lord Campbell, in his ' Lives 
of the Chancellors,' remarks of himself that he 
had seen a person who had seen a spectator of 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 19 

the execution of Charles L, in 1649. A single 
link separated Lord Campbell from the eye-wit- 
ness of an event occurring upwards of two hun- 
dred years before. Suppose this intervening 
witness to be known by Lord Campbell to be 
a discriminating and trustworthy person, and 
we have testimony that is fully credible. We 
borrow two examples from Mr. Palfrey's excel- 
lent ' History of New England.' The first re- 
lates to the preservation of the knowledge of 
the landing-place of the Pilgrims. ' Plymouth 
Rock/ says the historian, ' is now embedded in 
a wharf. When this was about to be built, in 
1741, Elder Thomas Faunce, then ninety-one 
years old, came to visit the Rock, and to remon- 
strate against its being exposed to injury; and 
he repeated what he had heard of it from the 
first planters. Elder Faunce's testimony was 
transmitted through Mrs. White, who died in 
1810, ninety-five years old, and Deacon Ephraim 
Spooner, who died in 1818, at the age of eighty- 
three.' In another place, Mr. Palfrey has occa- 
sion to observe : — ' When Josiah Quincy, of 
Boston, was twelve or thirteen years old, Na- 
thaniel Appleton was still minister of Cambridge, 



20 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

and a preacher in the Boston pulpits ; Apple ton, 
born in Ipswich in 1693, had often sat, it is 
likely, on the knees of Governor Bradstreet, who 
was his father's neighbor ; and Bradstreet came 
from England, in John Winthrop's company, in 
1630. Eyes that had seen men who had seen 
the founders of a cis-atlantie England, have 
looked also on New England, as she presents 
herself to-day.' Mr. Quincy died in 1864. Ev- 
ery man of seventy who can unite his memory 
with the memories of the individuals who had 
attained the same age when he was young, can 
go back through a period of more than a hun- 
dred years. He can state what was recollected 
fifty years ago concerning events that took place 
a half century before. If, in reference to a 
particular fact, we fix the earliest age of trust- 
worthy recollection at fifteen, and suppose each 
of those, whose memories are thus united, to 
give their report at the age of eighty, there is 
covered a period of one hundred and thirty 
years. We can easily think of cases where, 
from the character of both the witnesses, the 
evidence thus derived would be entirely con- 
clusive. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 21 

" But traditionary evidence had a special secu- 
rity and a special strength in the case of the 
early Christian Church. The church, as Mayer 
forcibly observes, had a physical and spiritual 
continuity of life. There was a close connection 
of its members one with another. ' Like a stream 
of water, such a stream of youths, adults, and 
old men is an unbroken whole.' The church was 
a community — an association. A body of this 
kind, says Mayer, recognizes that which is new, 
as new. It is protected from imposition. How 
would it be possible, he inquires, for a new Augs- 
burg Confession to be palmed upon the Lutheran 
Churches as a document that had long been gen- 
erally accepted ? 

" In estimating the force of this reasoning, we 
must take notice of the number of the early 
Christians. We must remember that at the close 
of the first century Christianity was planted in 
all the principal cities of the Roman Empire. It 
was in the great cities and centres of inter- 
course, as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, 
Alexandria, Rome, that Christianity was earliest 
established. As early as Nero's persecution, (a.d. 
64,) the Christians who were condemned consti- 



22 AUTHENTICITY OP THE GOSPELS. 

tuted, according to Tacitus, a ' great multitude.' 
In Asia Minor, in the time of Trajan, or at the 
close of the century, they had become so numer- 
ous that, according to Pliny, the heathen temples 
were almost deserted. A century later, making 
due allowance for the rhetorical exaggeration of 
Tertullian, and not depending on him alone, we 
are certain that the number of the Christians had 
vastly multiplied. In every part of the Roman 
Empire, in all places of consideration, and even 
in rural districts, Christian assemblies regularly 
met for worship. And in all these weekly meet- 
ings the writings of the apostles were publicly 
read, as we learn from so early a writer as Justin 
Martyr. 

" Now we have to look at the Christian churches 
in the second century, and ask if it was possible 
for a history of Christ, falsely pretending to be 
from the pen of the Apostle John, to be brought 
forward twenty, thirty, or forty years after his 
death, be introduced into all the churches east 
and west, taking its place everywhere in the pub- 
lic services of Sunday? Was there no one to 
ask where this new Gospel came from, and where 
it had lain concealed ? Was there no one, of the 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 23 

many who had personally known John, to expose 
the gigantic imposture, or even to raise a note of 
surprise at the unexpected appearance of so im- 
portant a document, of which they had never 
heard before ? How was the populous church at 
Ephesus brought to accept this work on the very 
spot where John had lived and died ? " 

It may doubtless be surprising to some, that 
such an earnest effort should be made to disprove 
the genuineness of a writing that rests on evi- 
dence so clear as that of the fourth gospel. A 
slight acquaintance with literary history, however, 
will show that the ablest men sometimes indulge 
in most remarkable theories on kindred subjects. 
Thus, it is related of -Lord Palmerston, that he 
entertained one of the most extraordinary para- 
doxes ever broached by a man of his intellectual 
calibre. He maintained that the plays of Shaks- 
peare were really written by Bacon, who passed 
them off under the name of an actor, for fear of 
compromising his professional prospects and phil- 
osophical gravity. When, on a certain occasion, 
the positive testimony of Ben Jonson, in the verses 
prefixed to the edition of 1623, was adduced, he 
remarked : " Oh ! these fellows always stand up 



24 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

for one another, or he may have been deceived 
like the rest." This opinion respecting the au- 
thorship of Shakspeare's Plays was entertained, 
as is well known, by an American lady of some 
celebrity, Miss Bacon, who wrote a large book to 
prove it. Another volume in defence of the same 
position has recently been published by a mem- 
ber of the legal profession, 1 in which he main- 
tains his ground with much ingenuity and ability. 
He starts with the admitted statement that no 
original manuscript of any play or poem, letter, 
or other prose composition, in the handwriting 
of Shakspeare has ever been discovered. None 
is known to have been preserved within the reach 
of the remotest tradition. He admits that Shaks- 
peare was reputed to be the author of these works, 
in his own time, not merely by the public in gene- 
ral, but by contemporary writers, his fellows of 
the theatre, the printers and publishers, and some 
great personages, and that the fact was never 
publicly questioned in that age. This would 
seem to be conclusive as to the authorship of 
these plays; but the author maintains the con- 

1 The Authorship of Shakspeare. By Nathaniel Holmes. New 
York: 1866. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 25 

trary with a display of research and an array of 
circumstantial evidence, which are very curious 
if not remarkable. He considers that Heming 
and Condell, the surviving fellows of Shakspeare, 
who gathered up from the playhouses of Lon- 
don these lasting memorials of transcendental 
genius, and published what is known as the 
folio of 1623, were acting at the secret instance 
and under the direction of Lord Bacon himself ; 
and that the dedication and preface, which have 
been supposed to be written by Ben Jonson, were 
in fact written by Bacon. He of course supposes 
that Ben Jonson must have been in the secret of 
the arrangement. We smile at a crotchet so ab- 
surd as this ; but why is it more absurd to deny 
the genuineness of these plays, than it is to call 
in question that of the fourth gospel? What 
more could Professor Greenleaf actually prove, 
by his method, in one case than in the other ? 
Is the reasoning of Lord Palmerston and Miss 
Bacon and Mr. Holmes any more absurd than 
that of the Tubingen school ? - 

In relation to the first three gospels, Mr. Fisher 
confines his remarks mainly to the recent ob- 
jections to their authenticity and genuineness, 



26 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

without giving the full proofs upon which their 
genuineness depends. It may be expedient, how- 
ever, in this connection, to refer to some of these 
as found in other authorities. Were these books 
the compositions of the persons whose names they 
bear ? Upon this point one great fact stands out 
in bold relief and is substantiated beyond all 
question, which is, that, at a period distant from 
the supposed composition of these books of less 
than one hundred and fifty years, the four gospels 
were attributed to the four persons, called the 
Four Evangelists, by the common consent of the 
church, which at that time was a very numerous 
body amounting to not less than three millions of 
souls scattered throughout the earth. This fact 
alone would in ordinary historical questions be 
regarded as satisfactory. Mr. Andrews Norton 
has examined the question with entire fairness, 
and has collected and arranged the proofs with 
great learning and ability, in his Evidences of the 
Genuineness of the Gospels. " The direct his- 
torical evidence," he says, " for the genuineness 
of the gospels consists in the indisputable fact, 
that throughout a community of millions of in- 
dividuals, scattered over Europe, Asia and Africa, 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 27 

the gospels were regarded with the highest rever- 
ence, as the works of those to whom they are 
ascribed, at so early a period, that there could be 
no difficulty in determining whether they were 
genuine or not, and when every intelligent Chris- 
tian must have been deeply interested to ascer- 
tain the truth. And this fact does not merely 
involve the testimony of the great body of Chris- 
tians to the genuineness of the gospels ; it is in 
itself a phenomenon admitting of no explanation, 
except that the four gospels had all been handed 
down as genuine from the apostolic age, and had 
everywhere accompanied our religion as it spread 
through the world." 1 

It should be borne in mind, that of the three 
first, or as they are styled, the Synoptical Gospels, 
only one is supposed to have been written by an 
eye-witness of the events described. The second 
gospel by the universal consent of the ancient 
church was ascribed to Mark, who is said to have 
been a companion of Peter and to have written 
under his superintendence, or at least to have 
been affected by his teachings. Luke was a com- 

1 Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. By Andrews Norton. 
Vol. i. Additional notes p. cclxx, 2d ed. 



28 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

panion of St. Paul and expressly disclaims hav- 
ing himself been an eye-witness of what he re- 
cords of the Lord's history. (Luke i. 2.) 

Now, in considering the question of the genu- 
ineness of these gospels, there are some consid- 
erations, apart from the fact that they were so 
regarded by the early church, which of themselves 
would be conclusive to a candid mind. It was 
only about three hundred years after the Cruci- 
fixion, that the Christian faith became under 
Constantine the religion of the Roman Empire. 
What was the standing of the books at that time ? 
Eusebius was a contemporary of the first Chris- 
tian emperor and much trusted by him, and he 
has repeatedly spoken of the Canon of the New 
Testament in the most exact terms. On any sup- 
position respecting the authorship of the gospels, 
this writer, as Dr. Palfrey 1 pointedly remarks, did 
not live at a time more distant from this compo- 
sition than we from that of the " Faery Queen " 
of Spenser, or of some of the plays of Shaks- 
peare, and sensible men would hardly be disposed 
to listen to any doubt respecting the origin of 

1 Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. By John G. Palfrey. 
Boston: 1843. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 29 

these works. Origen, of Alexandria in Egypt, 
was born a hundred and fifty years after the 
crucifixion and lived to the age of seventy. In 
his writings that survive, in the original Greek, 
there are quotations from all the gospels so nu- 
merous, that, if those books were lost, the works 
of Origen alone would almost afford the materials 
for a complete restoration of them. In the works 
of Clement of Alexandria, still extant, who flour- 
ished at the end of the second century, there are 
numerous citations from the four gospels. In 
one place he says in reference to an alleged dec- 
laration of Christ : — " We have not that declara- 
tion in the four gospels handed down to us." 
Tertullian in Carthage, a contemporary of Cle- 
ment, who was born one hundred and twenty 
years after the crucifixion, speaks of the univer- 
sal reception of the gospels and traces it to un- 
interrupted tradition in the churches gathered by 
the apostles themselves. He quotes from every 
chapter of Matthew, Luke and John. Then, we 
have Irenaeus, whose quotations from the four 
gospels have been collected by a modern critic 
and fill about eleven closely printed folio columns. 
He ascribes these books explicitly to the writers 



30 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

whose names they now bear. Of their authority 
he speaks as follows : " We have not received the 
knowledge of the way of our salvation by any 
others, than those by whom the gospel has been 
brought to us ; which gospel they first preached, 
and afterwards by the will of God committed to 
writing, that it might be the foundation and pillar 
of our faith. . . . For, after our Lord had risen 
from the dead, and they [the apostles] were en- 
dued from above with the power of the Holy Ghost 
coming down upon them, they received a perfect 
knowledge of all things. They then went forth 
to all the ends of the earth, declaring to men the 
blessing of heavenly peace, having all of them, 
and every one alike, the gospel of God. Matthew, 
then among the Jews, wrote a gospel in their own 
language, while Peter and Paul were preaching 
the gospel at Rome, and founding a church there. 
And, after their departure, Mark also, the dis- 
ciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in 
writing the things that had been preached by 
Peter; and Luke, the companion of Paul, put 
down in a book the gospel preached by him. 
Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who 
also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 31 

a gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus in Asia. And 
all these have delivered to us, that there is one 
God, the maker of the heaven and the earth, 
declared by the Law and the Prophets, and one 
Christ, the son of God. And he who does not as- 
sent to them, despiseth indeed those who knew the 
mind of the Lord, and he despiseth also Christ 
himself, the Lord, and he despiseth likewise the 
Father." * 

Justin Martyr was born in Samaria in the year 
90. He became a convert to Christianity and 
wrote several books, in which # he has numerous 
quotations of the gospels except Mark, as con- 
taining authentic accounts of Jesus Christ and 
his doctrines. He mentions the reading of the 
gospels in the solemn assemblies of the Chris- 
tians, and he appeals to them in the most public 
manner and they were manifestly open to all the 
world. Earlier even than Justin, there are found 
in Eusebius quotations from a now lost work by 
Papias, bishop of Hieropolis in Phrygia, who 
flourished in the year 116, in which he speaks of 
the gospels of Matthew and Mark, applying to 

1 Palfreifs Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, Vol. i. 
p. 120. 



32 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

them the title of oracles and declaring Mark's 
gospel to have been a record of the oral narra- 
tions of Peter. 

An objection might be made that the evidence, 
in order to be conclusive, should go nearer the 
time when the gospels purport to have been writ- 
ten, and that all the above mentioned writers 
were in the next generation. But this is clearly 
unreasonable, and is not applied to other works 
in order to test their authenticity. In the first 
place, it does not appear that there now exists 
any writing from a Christian who lived in the 
apostolic age ; and even if there were, and if no 
reference were made to these gospels, it would be 
just as probable that the omission arose from the 
fact that they were universally received as genu- 
ine, as the contrary. Who would at this day, in 
a book, speak of the genuineness of Wordsworth's 
poems, or Allison's histories, or would think it 
necessary to assert that any well known volume, 
published in the name of an author in the pres- 
ent generation and universally recognized as his 
work, was really his production ? 

These citations might be extended, but the fact 
of the early traditions of the church, the univer- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 33 

sal acceptance of the gospels as authentic, and the 
references to, and citations from them by writers 
in the second and third centuries, concerning the 
genuineness of whose works there is no question, 
are sufficient evidence for conscientious inqui- 
rers. Who at this day would for a moment doubt 
that celebrated literary works, written within the 
last one hundred and fifty years, were the genu- 
ine productions of the persons to whom they have 
been, from the first, universally attributed ? 

The main effort of modern skeptics, so far as 
the first three gospels are concerned, is to bring 
down their date to a time subsequent to the 
apostolic age. The attempt is made to show 
that these books were prepared long after the 
actors in the events had passed away ; that they 
comprise floating stories and traditions, which 
were gathered up at or after the end of the cen- 
tury in which Christ and his immediate disciples 
lived. 1 



1 Some of the objections have relation to the uncanonical gospels 
which were occasionally amplifications of the true gospels, sometimes 
with apocryphal details. There is no space to allude to these discus- 
sions at greater length here, but those who desire to pursue the in- 
vestigation will find it very interesting. In the Latin translation of 
Origen's commentary on Matthew, there is quoted from the uncanon- 

3 



34 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

The arguments of skeptics, in the last century, 
against the authenticity and genuineness of the 
gospels are familiar to most readers, as well as 
the answers to them. The most striking and pe- 
culiar form of unbelief in our time is the Mythi- 
cal Theory of Strauss and the Legendary Theory 
of Renan. The Life of Christ by the former is 
an elaborate and able work, by a man of learn- 
ing and great rhetorical skill. He undertakes to 
construct a Life of Christ and at the same time 
to assert the impossibility of miracles. His origi- 
nal theory was briefly this, as set forth by Mr. 
Fisher: — There existed in Palestine, at the time 
when Jesus grew up to manhood, a wide-spread 
expectation of the coming of the Messiah. There 
was also a defined conception, the result of the 
teaching of the Old Testament and of later specu- 
lation, of the character of his work. Among 

ical Gospel of the Hebrews, an account of the young man, as in Mat- 
thew, who comes to Jesus with his question as to the method of attain- 
ing eternal life. He is told to obey the law and the prophets. He 
replies, " I have done so." Jesus said unto him, " Come, sell all that 
thou hast and divide among the poor, and come, follow me." " But 
the rich man began to scratch his head,'' 1 &c. It shows the minute- 
ness and sharpness of the criticisms on these subjects, that this pas- 
sage is cited as strong evidence of the early date of the first gospel, 
as the passage was evidently taken from that gospel, and the anti- 
quity of the Gospel of the Hebrews is not denied. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 35 

other things, he was to work miracles, such 
as the opening of the eyes of the blind, the 
healing of the sick, the raising of the dead ; and 
he was, generally, to outdo the supernatural 
works ascribed to Moses and Elijah and the other 
prophets of the former time. Jesus, who had 
been baptized by John, became at length per- 
suaded that he was the promised Messiah. En- 
dowed with lofty qualities of mind and character, 
he attached to himself disciples who shared in 
his belief concerning himself. He taught with 
power through the towns and villages of Pales- 
tine. But, encountering the bitter hatred of the 
ruling classes on account of his rebuke of their 
iniquities, he was seized upon and put to death 
under Pontius Pilate. Overwhelmed with grief 
and disappointment, his disciples, who had ex- 
pected of him a political triumph, were finally 
comforted and inspirited by the mistaken belief 
that he had been raised from the dead. Hence 
the cause of Jesus was not crushed, but gradually 
gained strength. And out of the bosom of the 
young community, filled with enthusiastic attach- 
ment to their slain and (as they believed) risen 
Lord, there sprung the mythical tales which we 



36 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

find in the gospels. Believing Jesus to be the 
Messiah, they attributed to him spontaneously 
the deeds which the prophecies had ascribed to 
that personage. In these mythical creations, the 
formative idea was the Old Testament description 
of the Messiah. This idea, coupled with the 
faith in Jesus, generated the gospel history of 
Christ, so far as that is miraculous, and even ex- 
erted a very important influence in shaping and 
coloring circumstances in the narrative which are 
not supernatural. The Christ of the New Testa- 
ment is thus the ideal Messiah. He is Jesus of 
Nazareth, glorified in the feeling and fancy of disr 
ciples by the ascription to him of supernatural 
power and supernatural deeds, such as lay in the 
traditional, cherished image of the Messiah. 

The denial of the genuineness of the four gos- 
pels is an essential part of Strauss's theory. They 
cannot come, he maintains, from " eye-witnesses 
or well-informed contemporaries." The apostles 
could not be deceived to such an extent as we 
should be compelled to assume, if we granted that 
the gospels exhibit their testimony. On the sub- 
ject of the origin of the gospels, Strauss is neither 
full nor clear ; but this is affirmed, that they are 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 37 

the production of later, non-apostolic writers. 
This position he strives to establish by a crit- 
ical analysis and comparison of these documents. 
The attempt is made to prove upon them such in- 
consistencies with each other, as well as violations 
of probability, as render it impossible to suppose 
that they came from the hand, or bear the sanc- 
tion, of the immediate followers of Christ. The 
credibility of the gospels is attacked, partly as 
a means of disproving their genuineness. And 
the method of the attack is to press the point of the 
improbability of the miracles, while, at the same 
time, the untrustworthy character of the narra- 
tives is elaborately argued on other grounds. 
The gospels are dissected with the critical knife, 
their structure and contents are subjected to a 
minute examination, for the purpose of impress- 
ing the reader with the conviction that, independ- 
ently of their record of miracles, these histories 
are too inaccurate and self-contradictory to be 
relied on. Their alleged imperfections are skil- 
fully connected with the improbable nature of 
the events they record, so that the effect of both 
considerations may be to break down their his- 
toric value. 



38 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

Such was the original theory of Strauss a quar- 
ter of a century ago. He has recently (1864) 
developed a new one, and it is said that his re- 
statement is to a large extent a retraction. Of 
intentional deception, he professed at first to 
acquit the gospel authorities. He considered 
them artless, enthusiastic devotees, carried away 
by a common enthusiasm and unwittingly mistak- 
ing fiction for fact. Now, he makes them skilful 
theologians, bent on pushing forward certain ten- 
ets or allaying some doctrinal strife, and not 
scrupling to resort to pious fraud to accomplish 
their end. 

Renan's Life of Jesus has had a great circu- 
lation, and is the production of a learned man. 
As to the gospels he admits or asserts, that 
they all date back to the first century, and are 
substantially by the authors to whom they are 
attributed. But this concession must be taken 
with other remarks in connection with it, such as 
this, that the title the Gospel according to Mattheio 
and that of the other gospels, originally denoted, 
not authorship, but rather the source whence the 
traditions found in the several gospels were 
drawn. He contradicts the Tubingen theory 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 39 

respecting the fourth gospel, and affirms that it 
has the early date commonly assigned to it. He 
affirms that in the early church little importance 
was attached to the written gospels ; that for a 
hundred and fifty years the evangelical texts pos- 
sessed little authority ; that there was no scruple 
about inserting additions, combining them di- 
versely, or completing some by others. He adopts 
the legendary in distinction from the mythical 
theory. These accounts were rather the trans- 
figuration of fact, than a pure creation of pious 
enthusiasm. At least a great part of these ac- 
counts, he insists, emanate from the apostles 
themselves, and acts that passed for miraculous 
figured largely in the life of Jesus, who himself 
permitted the belief that he miraculously healed 
the sick and raised the dead. Kenan regards the 
gospels as legendary narratives, like the lives of 
some of the mediaeval saints ; and that the events 
in the life of Jesus which seemed miraculous, 
wore this character partly through the blind en- 
thusiasm of the apostles, and partly through pious 
fraud in which they had an active and their 
master a consenting agency. 

It is not necessary, nor is it agreeable to pur- 



40 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

sue this branch of the subject further. We have 
endeavored to state the present position of the 
controversy, in order to show more conclusively 
the struggle now going on among the religious 
sects as to the very foundation of their belief. 
The Bible itself is in apparent danger, and the 
attacks made upon it, as before remarked, are by 
men who cannot be answered by a sneer or 
turned aside by abuse, — by men who are them- 
selves professing Christians, and by some who 
hold high positions in the church. The preced- 
ing remarks are confined mainly to a statement of 
the argument in relation to the genuineness of the 
gospels, but the objections to their authenticity 
are no less relied upon by the skeptic. That is, 
not only is it denied that the gospels were written 
by the persons whose names they bear, but it is 
also denied that they are authentic narratives. 
It is not easy to separate the arguments on the 
two branches of the subject, since they run into 
each other, and the purpose of both is substan- 
tially the same, namely to discredit all written 
revelation. 

This contest is not in the least surprising ; nor 
is it discouraging. To entertain doubts on these 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 41 

subjects is, to those who receive the doctrines of 
Swedenborg, simply impossible. The historical 
argument in favor of the genuineness of the gos- 
pels, they regard as sound and unanswerable. 
They also believe the facts stated by the evange- 
lists to be literally true. But besides and beyond 
all this, they believe that the gospels, like the 
rest of the Word, were written strictly according 
to the science of Correspondence, and that they 
contain within the letter an internal sense, which 
bears the same relation to the external or literal 
sense, that the soul does to the body. Whatever 
apparent inconsistencies there may be in the gos- 
pels, considered as narrations of facts, there is no 
inconsistency in the internal sense, which is one, 
complete and effective. It was the special mis- 
sion of Swedenborg to open or explain this in- 
ternal sense of the Word. This he did, not on 
his own authority. His explanations are not like 
those of mere commentators on the Bible. They 
are not capricious, or, arbitrary, or changeable. 
But he opens a system or a science according to 
which the Scriptures were written. He devel- 
ops a plenary inspiration, more wonderful than 
any discoveries in science or the arts, — a system 



42 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

which proves itself, or rather, which would show 
any fallacy on his part, and would certainly ex- 
pose him, if his own explanations are not con- 
sistent with the system and with Jiimself. 

Whatever assaults, therefore, may be made on 
the Word ; whatever errors may be pointed out 
in the literal sense ; however absurd the state- 
ments therein contained may be alleged to be, 
they do not in the least affect our faith in the 
plenary inspiration, simply because they do not 
reach it. They are all on a lower plane. " The 
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." We be- 
lieve the miracles to be true. But we do not 
rely on them, nor pin our faith to them, nor ad- 
mit for a moment that, if they are not substan- 
tiated, the gospels are not revelations from God. 
On the contrary, we regard the latter as living 
truths, speaking to us now, commanding men 
everywhere to repent, aiding them in a life for 
heaven, — a most precious fountain of truth and 
full of wonderful things, so that if all were ex- 
plained in detail, the whole world would not con- 
tain the books that must be written. 

Nothing more surprises recent converts to our 
faith, than the apparent indifference of theolo- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 43 

gians to the principles on which Swedenborg 
shows the scriptures to have been written. They 
make an infinite deal of research into the local 
traditions of the past; they ransack the whole 
field of history; they bury themselves in the 
speculative theories of half barbaric ages ; they 
spend years in the infinitely minute learning of 
philologists ; but when a man of pure life, of ex- 
alted station and of great learning, develops the 
simplest possible theory of Scripture inspiration, 
he scarcely obtains a hearing from these theo- 
logical investigators, or his claims are turned 
aside with a sneer. On the other hand, the en- 
tire confidence with which his doctrines are held 
by the receivers of them, and the scarcely per- 
ceptible impression which opposition or denial of 
their truth makes upon them, is sometimes mat- 
ter of surprise and comment to those outside of 
the church. 

But neither of these circumstances is remark- 
able. That those who are wedded to the old 
theological dogmas, and particularly that men of 
learning should look with suspicion and aversion 
upon the doctrine of Correspondence, which 
opens the internal sense of the Scriptures, and 



44 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

which renders a great deal of the church litera- 
ture and theological discussions of no more 
consequence than the solemn nonsense of the 
school-men in the Middle Ages, is not remark- 
able. Nor, on the other hand, is the firmness of 
belief of New Churchmen justly attributable to 
bigoted intolerance or narrow self-conceit. If we 
desire to enter a room, which is known to be 
fastened by a lock of peculiar construction, and a 
person exhibits a key and expatiates on its merits 
and asserts that it will unlock the door, and goes 
into a long explanation of the character and 
structure of the lock, we may believe him or not, 
according to our understanding of the subject ; 
but if he actually applies the key and opens the 
door before our eyes, there is an end of argu- 
ment. We pass into the room, and wonder at 
those who remain behind discussing the method 
of opening the door. When Swedenborg asserts 
that the Word has an internal sense, and devel- 
ops the system on which it was written, and 
furnishes the key ; when those who apply it find 
the wonderful things he relates to be actually 
so ; when they perceive, that, whatever may be 
the difficulties of the literal Scriptures, whatever 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 45 

apparent inconsistencies may exist, these all dis- 
appear in the internal sense, they have passed 
to a higher plane, and are not affected by argu- 
ments and disputes of those who still remain on 
the lower one. Nor is the simplicity of the doc- 
trine of correspondences, according to which the 
Word is written, or the apparent difficulty of its 
application, a matter that should discourage 
those who are disposed to examine it. Most 
great discoveries have been remarkable for their 
simplicity, and, sometimes, even for their acci- 
dental occurrence. The falling of an apple is 
said to have led the philosopher to discover the 
great laws of gravitation, which effected an en- 
tire revolution in philosophical investigations, 
and rendered utterly useless, if not ridiculous, 
the discoveries of the learned for ages. Nor is 
it reasonable to expect, that, although the princi- 
ples on which the Word is written are plain and 
simple, — namely, that of an exact correspond- 
ence between things spiritual and natural, — the 
application of this principle is to be made in a 
day, or by every person who undertakes it. The 
doctrine opens a vast field of inquiry. It shows 
the Bible to be not merely the most wonderful 



46 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

book ever written, but it shows that it is more 
wonderful than anything else we see in the 
world. The Word of the Lord must be above 
His mere works as exhibited in nature. No 
educated man now denies the doctrine of attrac- 
tion or gravitation ; but because he receives this, 
does he think he can at once comprehend all the 
wonders of creation ? Does he who believes in 
the modern theory of the planetary system, 
therefore or thereby become a learned astrono- 
mer ? And because he does not, will he there- 
fore reject the theory, and go back to the dark 
ages ? 

Meanwhile, the truth will hold its own. The 
doubts which are experienced in regard to the 
received canon ; the assaults that are made upon 
the gospels ; the absolute denial of their authen- 
ticity by men who profess to be Christians, will 
tend to separate the real from the factitious. 
Theologians are put upon their good behavior. 
Denunciations, assertions, objurgations will pass 
for what they are worth. There is a spirit of in 
quiry abroad that will not be satisfied in this 
way. Nor will thinking and earnest men be 
content with mere external evidences. Many 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 47 

writers on this subject have gained an enviable 
reputation for the learning, ability and fairness 
with which they have conducted the controversy. 
Their works are valuable as far as they go. But 
they do not reach a growing difficulty. The 
same kind of reasoning might be applied to 
Caesar's Commentaries, or Xenophon's Anabasis, 
and would, or ought to be, entirely satisfactory 
as to the genuineness of such works. But after 
all, in matters affecting the eternal welfare of 
men, they desire something more. It is easy to 
admit the authenticity and genuineness of works, 
which, if they be not worthy of entire confi- 
dence, are of no special importance. But in 
regard to gospels which come with a claim 
of Divine power, or which command us in mat- 
ters of vast consequence — nothing less than the 
momentous concerns of the future life — we need 
a higher illustration ; the spirit yearns for some- 
thing more satisfactory. 

It is worthy of remark, also, that some of the 
authors who have presented the historical evi- 
dence of the genuineness of the gospels with 
great ability, do themselves entertain opinions as 
to the character and value of those writings so 



48 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

low as to render it almost doubtful whether they 
are worth the labor expended in their defence. 
They regard them as simply the works of men, 
and affected by the errors and mistakes of all 
human compositions. Indeed, Mr. Norton not 
only affirms that it is an essential misapprehen- 
sion concerning the intrinsic character of the 
gospels, to regard them as works written by 
the inspiration of God, or under his immediate 
suggestion and superintendence ; but he consid- 
ers this doctrine, on the one hand, an insupera- 
ble obstacle to all just apprehension of that vast 
amount of evidence for their truth which the 
gospels carry with them when properly regarded 
and understood, and, on the other, that it is 
from this doctrine that the objections with which 
their genuineness and authenticity have been 
assailed derive their chief strength. In short, 
to maintain their plenary inspiration is to fur- 
nish the strongest argument against their au- 
thenticity ! There is more than plausibility in- 
this position. It may be fairly said, that, if they 
are called infallible, they should be free from 
the imperfections and mistakes of merely human 
narrators ; and when such imperfections and mis- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 49 

takes are nevertheless discovered, the unbeliever 
naturally thinks he has found an argument 
against the reality of revelation itself. If, there- 
fore, the Christian insists on the infallibility of 
the gospels, while errors of fact are found in 
them, he does furnish an opportunity for plaus- 
ible attacks on their credit. 

Here is where the doctrine of an internal or 
spiritual sense is of most essential aid in estab- 
lishing the authenticity and genuineness of the 
gospels. For if we admit that this sense is 
the important one ; that it is entirely separate 
from, and parallel to, the literal sense ; if we 
suppose that the gospel narrations are literally 
true, but that, in the infinite wisdom of God, the 
facts and occurrences were so arranged as to 
contain in themselves a spiritual meaning, and 
that the history of these facts and occurrences 
was written under Divine inspiration, we shall 
see that any errors of fact are apparent rather 
than real, and that the essential truths con- 
tained within the letter are the important 
matter. It may be, it probably is true, that 
the evangelists themselves were not aware of 
the full significance of their labors ; that they 



50 AUTHENTICITY OV THE GOSPELS. 

wrote the events as they occurred, while at the 
same time, the events themselves contained a 
spiritual history of deeper import and of 4 far 
greater value than the writers had any con- 
ception of. In other words, the gospels were 
written according to the science of analogy or 
correspondence, and a knowledge of this science 
is essential not only to maintain their authen- 
ticity and genuineness, but to open the deep 
treasures lying beneath the literal sense. . 

The same considerations apply to the objec- 
tions that are now urged with so much perti- 
nacity, if not ability, against the scriptures of 
the Old as well as the New Testament. In these, 
it is alleged, there is much of positive error. 
The chronology is defective ; the geography is 
confused, sometimes unintelligible and often 
erroneous ; a great portion of them is of no 
importance whatsoever ; there are long geneal- 
ogies, accounts of petty civil wars, personal his- 
tories of no value or interest, and, more than 
this, there is much that is positively objection- 
able in a moral point of view. As historical 
works, it is further urged, many of these wri- 
tings are inferior to those from other pens, and, 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 51 

as literary compositions, a portion of them are 
inferior to the productions of heathen writers. 
Now, then, the difficulty is here. If these books 
are to be regarded as the works of men, then 
some of them are not superior to other literary 
compositions from the pens of even heathen 
writers, and are of no more value. If they are 
to be regarded as the works of God and plena- 
rily inspired, then the errors, inconsistencies and 
weaknesses are evidence against their credibility. 
But if we adopt the theory, that the works are 
inspired and contain a deeper meaning than has 
yet been found ; if we suppose that the errors 
and inconsistencies are apparent rather than 
real ; if we believe that their Divine Author 
still governs and sustains the world, still loves 
His children, and has yet infinite stores of wis- 
dom to communicate to them as soon as they 
are capable of receiving them, and that His 
Word like His works, although in the exterior 
similar to the creations of man, has yet within 
itself a wisdom, power and harmony which are 
truly wonderful, our own doubts will disappear, 
and we may satisfy the unbeliever himself that 
his objections are not against the scriptures but 



52 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

against the false notions regarding them enter- 
tained by men. 

Where then are we to look for this new theory 
of interpretation, and under what circumstances 
and with what sanction will it come ? This 
question suggests another subject apparently re- 
mote from but really intimately connected with 
it. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, 
after a prediction of the downfall of Jerusalem, 
we read : " And then shall appear the sign of 
the Son of Man in heaven : and then shall all the 
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see 
the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven 
with power and great glory." Skeptics maintain 
that here is really a distinct prediction, that the 
end of the world would occur in connection with 
the destruction of Jerusalem and within the life 
time of the generation then on the stage. This 
was the view of Theodore Parker. Mr. Gibbon 
alludes to the subject with the keenest interest in 
speaking of the early Christians. " It was uni- 
versally believed," he says, " that the end of the 
world and the kingdom of heaven were at hand. 
The near approach of this wonderful event had 
been predicted by the apostles ; the tradition of 






AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 53 

it was preserved by their earliest disciples, and 
those who understood in their literal sense the 
discourses of Christ himself, were obliged to ex- 
pect the second and glorious coming of the Son 
of Man in the clouds," and he adds, with char- 
acteristic and elaborate satire; "The revolution 
of seventeen centuries has instructed us not to 
press too closely the mysterious language of 
prophecy and revelation." The difficulty has 
been variously explained. Erasmus removes it 
by the help of allegory and metaphor. Grotius 
supposed the pious deception was permitted, for 
wise purposes, to take place. Some modern 
theologians affect to understand it without either 
allegory or deception. Others regard it as the 
principal exegetical difficulty in the New Testa- 
ment. But while the attempt is made to show 
that the prediction was not of an immediate 
event, it is even now the general view of the 
christian church, that the prophecy stands and 
will be accomplished, and that the second com- 
ing of the Lord in the clouds is to be expected. 
Even in this point of view the subject is at- 
tended with difficulties, and believers feel the 
force of Gibbon's warning, not to press too 



54 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

closely the mysterious language of prophecy and 
revelation. Does it ever occur to theologians 
that the nature of the Lord's second coming 
has been misunderstood ? We know that the 
Jews entirely mistook the prophecies respecting 
the Messiah. They expected a temporal sover- 
eign and did not recognize the Saviour when he 
appeared. May it not be, that the second com- 
ing of the Lord in the clouds refers to the 
opening of the sacred Scriptures, a revelation to 
men of the hidden meaning, saving power and 
wonderful harmony of His Word, the letter of 
which has been preserved with such remarkable 
care through all the ages ? 

It is not possible to pursue this subject fur- 
ther at the present time, but any one disposed 
to examine it, by the light of the sacred writings 
and of the early as well* as the later authorities, 
will find a remarkable concurrence of testimony 
to show, that the Second Coming of the Lord 
is not a coming in person, but the restoration 
of the true knowledge of divine subjects by 
the opening of the Scriptures. There are many 
circumstances in the present situation of the 
world which indicate that this period has ar- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 55 

rived. 1 If this be the true interpretation of 
the difficult passages, it affords an answer to 
one of the most strongly pressed objections both 
to the genuineness and authenticity of the gos- 
pels. But the question recurs, when, and under 
what circumstances, is the prophecy to be ful- 
filled ? In answer to this it may be remarked, 
that, if the constructions formerly and gener- 
ally put upon these passages are found to be 
erroneous and if the character of the Lord's 
second coming has been misunderstood, the 
minds of men will be in a better state to receive 
the truth when it is disclosed. In this connec- 
tion, then, let us glance for a moment at the 
doctrines of Swedenborg in relation to the sacred 
scriptures, and see whether they are not worthy 
of more consideration and study than have been 
given to them heretofore. 

Those who are familiar with the writings of 
this man find the science of correspondence 
quite simple and intelligible, and of most essen- 
tial aid not only \y\ the examination of Scripture 

1 See on this subject the Appeal in behalf cf the New Church, by 
Samuel Noble. London: 1862. Also the Plenary Inspiration of the 
Scriptures, by the same author. London: 1826. 



56 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 



but also in the explanation of natural phenom- 
ena. But to others it is somewhat difficult to 
elucidate the doctrine in a few words. Persons, 
indeed, who do not admit and fully receive into 
their minds the fact of a spiritual world, which 
is intimately connected with, yet entirely distinct 
from the natural world, find it almost impossible 
to comprehend the idea of a mutual relation 
between each and every thing in the one with 
each and every thing in the other. A conscien- 
tious inquirer cannot fail to see, on reflection, 
that in and within the material form of all things 
that meet the eye, or are appreciated by the 
senses of man, there must be an internal basis 
or harmonious combination of parts or qualities. 
"The real internal," says Mr. Locke, "but gen- 
erally in substances, unknown constitution of 
things, whereon their discernible qualities de- 
pend, may be called their essence," 1 and he 
makes a distinction between nominal and real 
essence. The nominal essence, for example, of 
gold is that complex idea expressed by gold ; 
and its real essence is the constitution of its 
insensible parts on which its properties depend, 

1 Locke's Essays, book iii, ch. iii, § 15. 






AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 57 

and which is unknown to us. What this " es- 
sence" is, the mode and conditions of its exist- 
ence and its exact relation to the " discernible 
qualities of things " have long puzzled the met- 
aphysicians, most of whom in their reasonings 
on the subject practically ignore the actual exist- 
ence of a spiritual world, which is within the 
natural world, and is the substantial life or " es- 
sential principle" of which the former is the 
outer covering. Nothing shows more clearly 
the separation between philosophy and religion, 
than the discussions of able and learned men 
on this and kindred topics. The struggles of 
intellectual giants, in attempting to explain the 
connection between material and mental phe- 
nomena, are no less unsatisfactory than remark- 
able. The profoundest truths, which they in 
vain attempt to fathom, are sometimes quite 
clear to the apprehension of the simple, who 
receive them as little children in the trusting 
confidence, that, as man was created " in the 
image and likeness of God," he is capable of 
receiving in a finite degree the attributes and 
qualities which exist in their infinite fulness 
in the divine nature ; that everything depends 



58 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

upon the Divine Power, not merely in its origi- 
nal inception and creation, but for its continued 
existence ; and that it is as impossible to under- 
stand natural and spiritual phenomena without 
the constant admission of this truth, as' it would 
be for anything to exist without the constant 
sustaining power of God. All the explorations 
of natural philosophers, all the discussions of 
metaphysicians, so far as they depart from this 
great central truth, lead to confusion, doubt and 
uncertainty, and not seldom end in darkness 
and despair. 

Our material bodies exist in the natural world 
to which they are fitted and by which they are 
nourished and sustained. Our spirits at the 
same time exist in the spiritual world to which 
they are fitted and by which they are nourished 
and sustained. The clothing of the spiritual 
body is the natural body to which it corresponds 
in every particular. The spiritual acts through 
and by means of the natural body, which it uses 
for its purposes, and, while thus using it, is not 
immediately conscious of the spiritual world ; 
nor can it be until death, when the natural body 
is laid aside for ever, and the spiritual body alone 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 59 

remains. Every material thing in the universe 
is the outbirth or ultimate form of something in 
the spiritual world to which it corresponds, so 
that there is an exact mutual relation between 
the two and between everything in them. 

This correspondence is not mere symbolism 
or representation, in the ordinary acceptation of 
those terms, but is unchangeable, uniform and 
exact; for nothing natural could exist but for 
what the metaphysicians call its essence, nor 
apart from what Swedenborg calls its correspond- 
ence. This correspondence or mutual relation 
not only exists between the spiritual and natural 
worlds, but it also exists between man himself 
and these two worlds, and between them all and 
the Creator. Man was truly created in the 
image and likeness of God. There is no attri- 
bute or form of the Infinite but has its corre- 
spondence or likeness in humanity. There is 
nothing in the spirit of man but has its likeness 
or correspondence in his body. There is nothing 
in the material universe but has its outbirth or 
representation in the spiritual world. Nor is 
there anything in the body or spirit of man but 
is connected by analogy with something in the 



60 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

internal and external worlds. The whole uni- 
verse, all the existences, animate and inanimate, 
are connected together. There is no break in 
the circle. There is nothing accidental ; noth- 
ing purposeless ; nothing in the whole range of 
spirit and nature, that has not its special use and 
its well-defined position, its exact correspond- 
ence. 

If, then, the precise analogy or correspond- 
ence between spiritual and natural things were 
fully known, it is obvious that a language might 
be constructed in which, while none but natural 
images were used, purely intellectual ideas could 
be expressed, which would be of universal appli- 
cation, and which would be understood by all 
created beings. If every natural thing repre- 
sents or corresponds to something spiritual ; if 
everything external exactly relates to something 
internal, then a language might be formed on the 
principle, that when natural or outward and vis- 
ible things are spoken of, inward and spiritual 
things are represented and signified, and thus 
the literal sense would have within it a spiritual 
sense of far deeper import and significance. 

It is on this principle that the Scriptures were 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 01 

written. They appear to be merely human com- 
positions. But within the letter they are divine. 
They are narratives of historical events. In the 
letter they often treat of the rise and fall of 
nations, of wars, of combats of the display of 
human passions. Within all this they relate 
to spiritual combats, to regeneration, to the sal- 
vation of man, to the trials, the temptations and 
the dangers of humanity. In the letter, although 
often obscure, they comfort, support and elevate 
the soul. But in the spiritual sense they are 
plain, harmonious and consistent, and open an 
entirely new region to the mind ; they lift man 
above the carking cares and sordid troubles of 
life ; they show him the path he is travelling, 
exhibit to him the exact position he occupies 
in that path, point out to him the precise temp- 
tations he has to encounter and inform him how 
to overcome them. 

The revealed will of God, as contained in His 
Word, must necessarily be of a higher order than 
his works as exhibited to the senses of man. 
And if the latter have an internal or essence 
to which they correspond, for a still stronger 
reason we shall expect that His Word would 



62 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 



have an internal or spiritual sense of higher 
significance and greater power than the mere 
literal sense. 

" When you look upon a work of man," says 
Le Boys Des Guays, 1 " for instance a painting 
or statue, having seen the surface, you have seen 
all. Not so with the works of God ; however 
great their exterior beauties, dissection and the 
microscope reveal still more wonderful beauties 
within ; and the scientific explorer who has 
pushed his researches to the extreme limits of 
science, is obliged to confess that what he has 
discovered is very far short of what still remains 
unknown. Every one knows, indeed, that there 
is an immense difference between the works of 
man and the works of God ; but many look upon 
the Bible simply as a human composition of 
great antiquity, and in order to induce them to 
regard it as a work of God, it would be necessary 
to prove that the same difference exists between 
it and any ordinary book that there is between 
the works of God and the works of man. Now, 
from what has been said, you will see that the 



1 Lettres a un Homme du Monde, ou Systeme de Philosophie Reli- 
gieuse. Par J. F. E. Le Boys Des Guays. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 63 

difference between the works of God and the 
works of man consists principally in this, that 
the works of God from the lowest in the scale 
of being to the very highest, have an interior 
organization, beyond what appears in their ex- 
ternal form. Our object then would be to prove 
that the Bible also has an interior organization 
which does not appear in its outward form, or 
in its letter ; and that like all the other works 
of God — though infinitely superior to them, 
because as The Word, it has created them — 
it presents to the dissecting knife and the micro- 
scope of illustrated human intelligence, interior 
beauties which become more and more wonder- 
ful, the more deeply one penetrates it. This 
interior organization to which the Lord himself 
most pointedly refers, by saying that His words 
are Spirit and Life, is the interior sense shrouded 
in the external or literal sense of the Bible." 

The doctrine of Swedenborg is, that certain 
of the books of the common version of the Bible 
contain an internal or spiritual sense, which is 
entirely separate from, and parallel to, the literal 
sense. The one sense can never run into the 
other ; nor is it possible for any one by a study 



64 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

of the literal sense to understand the spiritual 
sense which is upon a different plane and is a 
discrete degree above. " The spiritual sense of 
the Word is not that which shines forth out 
of the sense of the letter, while one is searching 
and explaining the Word to establish some tenet 
of the church. This sense is the literal sense of 
the Word. But the spiritual sense does not 
appear in the sense of the letter. It is within 
it, as the soul is in the body, as thought is in 
the eyes, and affection in the countenance, which 
act as one, like cause and effect." 1 

It is hardly necessary to point out the essen- 
tial difference between this doctrine and that of 
Strauss, which was (in his original work at 
least) that the whole history of our Lord was 
mythic, being a sort of amplification of vague 
traditions ; or of the theory of Renan, that 
the gospels are legendary narratives, and that the 
events in the life of Jesus which seemed miracu- 
lous, wore this character partly through the 
blind enthusiasm of the apostles, and partly 
through pious fraud in which they had an active, 
and their master a consenting agency. The doc- 

1 Swedenborg: Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, n. 5. 






AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 65 

trine of Swedenborg in relation to an internal 
sense of the Scriptures is in no way inconsistent 
with the literal truth of the gospel narratives, 
but is confirmatory of it. He undoubtedly re- 
gards the internal sense as infinitely the most 
important, for, as he finely expresses it, the 
literal sense of the Word must pass, as it 
were, into a shade, before the internal can ap- 
pear ; even as the earthly body must die before 
man can clearly behold the spiritual things of 
heaven. 1 

The science of correspondence according to 
which the Scriptures are written is nothing es- 
pecially new ; certainly, it was known in the 
primitive ages of mankind. Few men of learn- 
ing now pretend to deny that the earth existed 
for ages prior to the Mosaic statement, or that 
the ordinary chronology is entirely at fault. 
Undoubtedly the account of the creation and 
the fall of man in the first chapters of Genesis 
is allegorical. 2 The man Adam represents a 
race or a church. The fall was actual but was 

1 Arcana Coeltstia, n. 1408. 

2 The six days or times are so many successive states of the 
regeneration of man. (Swedenborg: Arcana C&lestia, n. 6.) The 
biblical account of creation was regarded by Dr. Knapp as early as 

5 



66 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

gradual. There was, according to Swedenborg, 
an ancient church, which extended over the 
greater part of the globe and flourished princi- 
pally in Syria, the land of Canaan, Mesopotamia, 
Arabia, Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Nineveh, Tyre, 
and Sidon. There was a written word of this 
church, which consisted of both historical and 
prophetical books. It was lost in the course of 
time, only a few fragments of it being found 
in the books of Moses. In times more ancient 
still, the science of correspondence was fully 
understood, so much so that men were enabled 
to speak with angels. " In the most ancient 
church," says Swedenborg, " the Word was not 
written, but was revealed to every one who was 
of the church, for they were celestial men, thus 
in the perception of good and truth like the 
angels, with whom also they had fellowship ; 
thus they had the Word written in their hearts. 
And inasmuch as they were celestial, and in 
society with angels, all things which they saw 
and apprehended by any sense were to them 

1789 as a succession of pictures with existing nature in the fore- 
ground. This has been a favorite mode of representation among 
authors, the most brilliant exhibition of which was by Hugh Miller. 
Hitchcock' 's Elements of Geology, 388. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 67 

representative and significative of things celestial 
and spiritual, which are in the Lord's kingdom ; 
so that they saw indeed worldly and terrestrial 
things with their eyes, or apprehended them by 
their other senses, but from them and by them 
they thought concerning things celestial and 
spiritual : it was for this cause, and not other- 
wise, that they were able to speak with angels, 
for the things which are with the angels are 
celestial and spiritual, and when they present 
themselves to man, they fall into such things as 
are with man in the world." 1 He also asserts 
not only that the science of correspondence was 
cultivated in many kingdoms of Asia and that 
Egyptian hieroglyphics were made in accord- 
ance with it, but that it was conveyed into 
Greece, where it was changed into fable ; and 
hence we have the mythology, which is clearly 
symbolical and representative although vague 
and fragmentary. When Mr. Gladstone, there- 
fore, in his recent valedictory address as rector 
of the University of Edinburgh, treats with un- 
sparing ridicule the prevalent opinion that the 
Greeks derived their civilization from the He- 

1 Arcana C&lestia, n. 2896. 



68 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

brews, he substantially although unknowingly 
agrees with Swedenborg in the idea, that they go 
farther back than the Jews to that ancient race 
which was near the angels themselves ; as also 
when he further asserts that the pagan system 
represented a continuous unbroken tradition dat- 
ing beyond the memory of man. It had come 
down from father to son for more than a hundred 
generations with an ostensible sameness and a 
very widely extended sway ; and none could 
name the day when, in the two far famed pen- 
insulars that had given the breath of life to the 
ancient world, it did not exist and prevail. 

Nothing is more certain than that many of the 
early Christian fathers undertook an allegorical 
interpretation of the gospels. They believed in 
the literal sense and proposed a secondary. 
Mosheim states that even in the first century 
" several Christians adopted that absurd and cor- 
rupt custom, used among the Jews, of darkening 
the plain words of the holy scriptures by insipid 
and forced allegories, and of drawing them vio- 
lently from their proper and natural signification, 
in order to extort from them certain hidden and 
mysterious significations." Of those in the sec- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 69 

ond century, he mentions Pantaenus, the head 
of the Alexandrian school of divinity, Clement of 
Alexandria, Justin, Theophilus bishop of Anti- 
och, and says they all attributed a double sense 
to the words of scripture, the one obvious and 
literal, the other hidden and mysterious, which 
lay concealed as it were, under the veil of the 
outward letter. As for Origen in the third cen- 
tury, he maintained that the words of scripture 
were, in many places, absolutely void of sense ; 
and that though in others there were indeed cer- 
tain notions contained under the outward terms 
according to their literal force and import, yet 
it was not in these that the true meaning of the 
sacred writers was to be sought, but in a myste- 
rious and hidden sense arising from the nature 
of the things themselves. The learned Mosheim 
further admits, that large numbers of Christian 
writers during several centuries contended for 
this principle, and the admission is the more 
significant because he himself strongly condemns 
it. It is not pretended that the allegorical inter- 
pretations were similar to those of Swedenborg, 
or founded on the same principles. But they do 
show conclusively, that, by the traditions of the 



70 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

church from the earliest times down to the refor- 
mation, there was in the scriptures more than 
meets the eye — a hidden or internal sense. 

It is no part of our intention to attempt a full 
explanation of the science of correspondence. 
We merely desire to call the attention of candid 
and reflecting men to a subject of transcendent 
interest and importance. Let them examine it 
for themselves. Nor indeed would it be pos- 
sible in a brief space to give anything more than 
a bare idea of the system. The mission of this 
remarkable man was to explain the spiritual 
sense of the Word. He sets forth the principles 
on which he asserts it was written, and the sub- 
ject is surely worthy of examination. Nor let 
any one suppose that it is to be disposed of in 
a day, or to be understood at a glance. The 
principles of the doctrine are simple. Their ap- 
plication may occupy a lifetime. If, as it is 
reasonable to believe, the Word of God is read 
by angels x as well as by men, it will be a subject 
of interesting study to devout men for ever. 
Nothing is more unreasonable than the demand 

1 For ever, Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 
cxix, 89. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 71 

often made for immediate, clear and satisfactory 
instruction on these points. But it is character- 
istic of the age. When Madame de Stael was 
introduced to Sir James Macintosh, her first 
remark is said to have been, " Now explain to 
me your philosophy in ten words." Swedenborg 
was one of the most prolific writers that ever 
lived. His literary career extended over a pe- 
riod of more than sixty years. Those who 
expect to comprehend his system without study 
and careful investigation cannot fail to be disap- 
pointed. At the same time, the elementary prin- 
ciples, on which it rests, as before remarked, are 
few and simple and not difficult of apprehension. 
His writings are more extensively read than is 
generally supposed. But it will probably be 
long before they can become popular in the ordi- 
nary sense of the term. Indeed, they strike so 
deeply at the foundation of existing philosophical 
systems ; they are so outspoken and unsparing 
in their denunciation of error in all its forms, 
and they are so utterly at variance with the 
sensuous speculations of the age, that it is not 
surprising they are not held in higher esteem by 
the mass of mankind. It is surprising, however, 



72 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

that they have not attracted more attention ; es- 
pecially is it remarkable that they are so much 
misunderstood. A gentleman now living, while 
a student in the oldest university in the country, 
finding some of these works on the college cata- 
logue, desired to examine them. They were not 
in the library. No one seemed to know where 
they were. At length after considerable search, 
they were found in a room that had been appro- 
priated to curiosities, such as stuffed serpents, 
Indian relics and similar affairs. Such was the 
disposition of the works of a man, whose philo- 
sophical treatises alone on matters connected 
with the Physical Sciences, on the Principles of 
Chemistry, on the Economy of the Animal King- 
dom, on Anatomy, making more than twenty 
volumes, all published before he wrote a line on 
theological subjects, should entitle him to re- 
spectful consideration among scholars. 

The commonly received notion that there is 
something eccentric, odd and even ridiculous has 
done much to divert men from an examination of 
these works. The difficulty has been increased 
by foolish stories that have no foundation in fact, 
and also by extracts from the writings, which, 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 73 

separated from the context, appear obscure and 
sometimes absurd. 

There is one consideration however which has 
operated adversely, and which is worthy of atten- 
tion. If there be an internal sense of the Word 
which is entirely distinct from the literal sense 
and which contains wonderful tilings, why has it 
never been revealed before ? Why should men 
have been permitted to grope on in ignorance of 
that, the knowledge of which, if not essential to 
salvation, is at least of the greatest importance ? 
This precise objection is the one most often made 
to new developments of truth because it is the 
easiest answer when none other is at hand. It 
was very much insisted on by the early oppo- 
nents of the Christian religion. " If Christ," said 
Porphyry in the third century, " declares himself 
the way of salvation, grace and truth, and offers 
a way of return through himself alone, to believ- 
ers in him, what was the lot of the many genera- 
tions before him?" So Arnobius at the end of 
the same century took great pains to confute this 
reasoning which was made in his time. The 
answer of Bishop Butler that such an objection 
would be equally valid against innumerable facts 



74 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

in the established course of nature where un- 
questionable experience refutes its validity and 
demonstrates its unsoundness, is effectual to si- 
lence the objector, 1 but is not so satisfactory to 
the reason by any means as the ground upon 
which Swedenborg places it, throughout his writ- 
ings, namely, that the Lord himself must act 
according to the laws of order, and makes every 
revelation of truth so fast and so far as it con- 
sists with those laws and the freedom and safety 
of man. 

It may be remarked here, that there is a strik- 
ing similarity between the objections made by 
early opposers of Christianity and those made to 
the doctrines of the New Church, as any one 
disposed to examine those writings may easily 
see. Thus, Celsus, an Epicurean philosopher in 
the second century, argued that the Christian 
faith was but a republication of old truths ; that 
the wonderful works of Jesus, if actually per- 
formed, were performed by magical arts. Mar- 

1 The invention of the steam engine, of the magnetic telegraph 
and anaesthesia are no less valuable and important to the human 
race although but recently known. What would be thought of a 
statement that they could not exist, because it is inconsistent with a 
merciful God not to have revealed them to man ages ago ! 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 75 

cus Minucius Felix, an eminent professional 
pleader at Rome, early in the third century 
wrote a defence of the Christian faith in the 
form of a dialogue between a heathen and a 
Christian, in which the former urges his objec- 
tions and the latter answers them. Among 
these objections is the difficulty of arriving at 
religious truth, the great variety of speculations 
concerning it, and he declares it to be the only 
prudent course to follow the religion of one's 
ancestors. After a panegyric upon the systems 
of Gentile superstition, he rails at the Christians 
because they seek to overthrow or weaken so 
ancient, so useful, so salutary a faith. " A set 
of people they are," he says, " artful and shun- 
ning the light ; in public they are dumb, in cor- 
ners they are garrulous ; they abhor the temples 
as they would funeral piles ; they despise the 
gods ; they ridicule our sacred solemnities. With 
astonishing folly and incredible arrogance, they 
defy present suffering, but tremble at that which 
is uncertain and future ; and, while they fear to 
die after death, death itself they do not fear, a 
fallacious hope so soothes their dread with the 
image of after recompenses." He then speaks of 



76 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

the story everywhere current, that, when they 
initiated novices, they put a child to death with 
many ceremonies and then licked its blood, and 
tore apart its limbs ; and refers to their shame- 
less promiscuous impurities, as being equally 
notorious. It is remarkable that these calum- 
nies, though widely spread among the Gentiles, 
appear to have originated with the Jews. " No 
other people," said Justin, in the second century, 
alluding to the Jews, " no other people are so 
unjust to us and Christ as you, who have caused 
the prejudices of others against the Just One and 
us, his followers. For after you had crucified 
him, you sent out chosen men from Jerusalem 
into all the earth, saying that an atheistical sect, 
called Christians, had appeared, thus spreading 
those evil reports concerning us, which all who 
are ignorant of us now repeat." 

The Emperor Julian, in the fourth century, 
after Christianity " had seated itself in the cham- 
bers of imperial council," and, in the person of 
Constantine, had ascended the throne of the 
Caesars, opposed it strongly, and repeats the 
question, why, if such a revelation as that of 
Christianity was ever to be made, it should have 
been delayed so long. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 77 

The reader who is curious on the subject will 
not fail to be interested by the similarity of the 
objections, in ancient and in modern times, to 
any new revelation of truth. Those early made 
to Christianity are very clearly stated in Dr. Pal- 
frey's Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. 
In particular it is worth while to note the de- 
scription, by this learned writer, of Josephus, and 
the manner in which he accounts for the entire 
silence by the Jewish historian, who was born 
ten years after the Crucifixion, on the subject 
of that wonderful event, and in fact of the Lord 
himself, for he alludes to him but twice, and 
even these passages have been supposed to be 
spurious. Josephus was a priest by virtue of 
his descent from a sacerdotal family ; and, to his 
accomplishments as a scholar and writer, he 
added those of military skill. When the con- 
quest of his country was completed, he retired 
to Rome, where he lived in honor. " We find 
Josephus," says Dr. Palfrey, " to have treated 
Christianity just as, under the circumstances 
that have been explained, we might have sup- 
posed that it would be treated by a person of 
his position in his time." " He was moving 



78 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

in the high circles of society, where Christianity 
did not come much in his way ; and he did not 
go in search of Christianity. His pleasures were 
those of elegant life ; his cares were those of 
the politician and the soldier. He lived in a very 
stormy time, and a variety of subjects pressed 
themselves on his attention. If he had heard 
of the wonderful works wrought by Jesus in the 
generation preceding his own, he would say to 
himself, either that the relation was fabulous, 
or else, in the spirit of the age, that the wonders 
had been accomplished by demoniacal or magical 
arts ; and, if the calumnies circulated from the 
first against the persecuted sect had reached his 
ear, they would but increase his coldness and 
his prejudice. In this state of ignorance and 
indifference, — similar, it is likely, to what would 
be the state of mind of a polite writer of the 
present day in relation to the Mormonites, — 
it is no matter of surprise, if we find in his wri- 
tings no reference to Christianity." Could there 
be a better description of the " state of ignorance 
and indifference " of Dr. Palfrey himself and of 
learned men like him 1 at the present day re- 

l A curious illustration of this "ignorance and indifference" is 






AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 79 

specting the doctrines of the New Church as 
explained by Swedenborg. Truly : — 

" Out of the olde fieldes, as men saithe, 

Cometh all this newe corn fro yere to yere ; 
And out of olde bookes, in goode faithe, 

Cometh all this newe science that men lere." 

The celebrated passage of Mr. Macaulay, deny- 
ing that revealed religion is of the nature of 
a progressive science, is of a piece with the early 
writers who opposed the Christian system. " All 
divine truth," he says, " is, according to the doc- 
trine of the Protestant churches, recorded in 

afforded by the recent work of Mr. David Masson on Recent British 
Philosophy. He finds it necessary to allude to what he calls " Brit- 
ish Swedenborgianism and the widely diffused forms of analogous 
belief represented in the so called literature of Spiritualism or Spirit 
Manifestations." He speaks of " Swedenborgianism and its cognate 
Spiritualism," and, in all his remarks, confounds the two in a man- 
ner to show the grossest ignorance of one of them at least, the truth 
being that what is known as Spiritualism prevails less extensively 
among the New Church than with any other class of men. Indeed, 
there cannot be found anything in the writings of Swedenborg that 
favors the theories or practices of Spiritualism. On the contrary, his 
doctrines are directly opposed to the teachings of the Spiritualists, 
and nowhere are the dangers of any such attempt to penetrate the 
other world more clearly pointed out, or the liability to fraud and 
deception by mischievous spirits more forcibly exposed. In no one 
thing are the doctrines of SAvedenborg more remarkable than for 
practical common sense, and it will in general be found that those 
who receive them the most readily and hold them the most firmly 
are by no means idle dreamers or sentimental visionaries. 



80 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

certain books. It is equally open to all who, 
in any age, can read these books ; nor can all 
the discoveries of all the philosophers in the 
world acid a single verse to any of those books. 
It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there can- 
not be a progress analogous to that which is 
constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology 
and navigation. A Christian of the fifth century 
with a Bible was neither better nor worse situ- 
ated than a Christian of the nineteenth century 
with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness being 
of course supposed equal." He admits, indeed, 
that one reservation must be made. The books 
and traditions of a sect may contain, mingled 
with propositions strictly theological, other prop- 
ositions purporting to rest on the same author- 
ity, which relate to physics. If new discoveries 
should throw discredit on the physical proposi- 
tions, the theological propositions will share in 
that discredit. 

This is the real difficulty in which the old 
church finds itself involved as to the Bible. A 
considerable portion of the literal sense is unin- 
telligible, — some of it appears incoherent, if 
not absurd ; while, by the advance of science, 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 81 

portions are apparently proved to be incredible. 
Unless, then, there is to be some real advance 
in religious knowledge, unless these portions 
of the Bible can be reconciled with the discov- 
eries of science, the Bible to that extent is dis- 
credited. Take the first chapter of Genesis, and 
compare the universal belief of the Christian 
Church, half a century ago, with that of to-day, 
since the great progress of philosophical discov- 
ery and the establishment of geology as a 
science, and what do we find ? Few men of 
learning now pretend to receive the Mosaic 
account in its exact literal sense ; nor does 
the fact that whole races lived upon the earth 
before the Aclamic period rest upon the au- 
thority of Swedenborg alone. It is as well estab- 
lished as any scientific proposition. M. Alcide 
D'Orbigny, the eminent paleontologist, says, " A 
first creation took place in the Silurian stage. 
After that was annihilated by some geological 
cause, and after a considerable time, a second 
creation took place in the Devonian stage, and 
successively twenty-seven times have distinct cre- 
ations repeopled all the earth with plants and 
animals following each time some geological dis- 



82 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

turbance. Such is the certain, but incompre- 
hensible, fact, which we are bound to state, 
without trying to pierce the superhuman mys- 
tery that envelops it." " We know," says Dr. 
Hitchcock, " that the time was, when no animal 
nor plant lived because it was a molten world. 
What but a miracle could have filled it with 
inhabitants ? We know that in after ages whole 
races died out and new ones came in, so 
that numerous entire changes of population oc- 
curred." l 

Now if we adopt the narrow view of Mr. 
Macaulay, that in " divinity there cannot be a 
progress analogous to that which is constantly 
taking place in pharmacy, geology and naviga- 
tion," where will the numerous advances in 
science leave the Bible ? The Hindoo mythol- 
ogy, we are told, is bound up with a most absurd 
geography. Every young Brahmin, therefore, 
who learns geography, learns to smile at the 
Hindoo mythology. Apply the same doctrine 
to the Biblical student and where will it leave 
him ? There are statements in the letter of the 
Word which appear unreasonable and directly 

1 Hitchcock's Elements of Geology, 380. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 83 

in conflict with well ascertained facts. If the 
literal sense is the only sense it must fall. But 
if within the literal sense there is another and 
a higher one which contains the sublimest truths, 
we can well suppose that the literal sense may 
in some instances be strained to a point almost 
beyond the credible, for the sake of the interior 
truth. 

We have characterized the view of Mr. Macau- 
lay as narrow. The term is almost too mild. 
In an age of such remarkable activity, of star- 
tling discoveries and of an unparalleled progress 
in scientific investigation, it is surprising to find 
a man of great learning and an earnest thinker, 
limiting human progress to the investigation of 
the works of our Maker, while his spoken Word 
is for ever to remain a sealed book, and the 
doctrines derived from it are to admit of no 
advance. On the contrary, it is more in accord- 
ance with good sense to suppose, that here may 
be the most important discoveries ever made. 
It is not in the natural sciences alone, that the 
boundaries of knowledge are to be enlarged ; 
but in the Word of the Great Architect, in His 
immediate revealed will to man, there will be 



84 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

opened new fields of discovery, vast, wonderful, 
sublime. Whether this time has come, whether 
the man has yet appeared, are the questions. 
Until the probability of such an event is admitted 
and its necessity is felt, men will be in no con- 
dition to appreciate the doctrine when it is enun- 
ciated. They prefer to stand by the ancient 
ways. They are looking for something different. 
They cannot conceal their contempt for a system 
which strikes at the foundation of all existing 
systems. They prefer to wrap themselves in 
the comfortable folds of received opinions, rather 
than to wander in what seems to them the inex- 
tricable confusion of mystical philosophy. 

Of Swedenborg himself there is little to be 
said in this connection. His doctrines do not 
rest upon his personal character. If they did, 
there could be no stronger foundation of that 
kind. A man of vast learning, of great and 
varied accomplishments, of extreme sobriety of 
thought, a profound mathematician, a square 
and constant mind, holding a high position in 
the state to the day of his death, the companion 
of a great king and a frequent attendant at 
court for more than half a century, he was at all 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 85 

times and under all circumstances the most sim- 
ple and unostentatious of mortals. After thirty 
years of public service and of scientific investi- 
gations, he spent the rest of his life mainly in 
the development of the new doctrines ; but his 
personal claims were never brought before the 
world. His works were written in Latin. They 
were printed at his own expense, and were de- 
posited in the libraries of universities. He did 
not even affix his name to them at first, and 
only did so finally, at the suggestion of a friend, 
and from a sense of duty. He never undertook 
to form a sect, — much less to place himself 
at the head of a new religious movement. He 
pretended to no miraculous power in proof of 
his statements. He constantly insisted, that 
nothing of this sort was needed, or would be 
given at this day. In most of the biographies 
of this man there are accounts of events in 
his life, which appear to be well authenticated, 
and which tend to prove the reality of his inter- 
course with the spiritual world, but they are 
produced by his biographers on their own re- 
sponsibility. They never were regarded by him 
as of any consequence, nor even alluded to. It 



86 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

is a matter of regret that they occupy so promi- 
nent a position in the accounts of his life, inas- 
much as they seem to be relied on as evidence 
of his mission, and to contradict his own re- 
peated assertions that such evidence is at this 
day of no account. 

This man, only the ignorant will misrepre- 
sent ; only the vulgar will ridicule. The some- 
time brutal attacks of mere theologians are 
of little consequence, because they say noth- 
ing worse of him than they do of each other. 
But no one who is familiar with his personal 
history, or his achievements in literature and 
science, will entertain any feeling but that of 
respect. " I will venture to assert," says Cole- 
ridge, " that as a moralist, Swedenborg is above 
all praise; and that as a -naturalist, psycholo- 
gist and theologian, he has strong and varied 
claims on the gratitude and admiration of the 
professional and philosophical faculties." " Hith- 
erto," Mr. Carlyle writes, " I have known nearly 
nothing of Swedenborg ; or indeed I might say 
less than nothing, having been wont to picture 
him as an amiable but inane visionary, with 
affections quite out of proportion to his insight : 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 87 

# 

from whom nothing at all was to be learned. 
It is so we judge of extraordinary men. But 
I have been rebuked already ; a little book, by 
one Sampson Reed, of Boston, in New England, 
which some friend sent hither, taught me that 
a Swedenborgian might have thoughts of the 
calmest kind on the deepest things ; that, in 
short, I did not know Swedenborg, and ought 
to be ready to know him." " His writings," 
says Ralph Waldo Emerson, " would be a suffi- 
cient library to a lonely and athletic student." 
" Not every man can read them, but they will 
reward him who can." " The grandeur of the 
topics makes the grandeur of the style." " One 
■of the missouriums and mastodons of literature, 
he is not to be measured by whole colleges of 
ordinary scholars." 

Such is the man, who in the last century, 
after almost an ordinary lifetime of literary and 
scientific pursuits, announced himself as the 
" Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ," and under- 
took to develop a new doctrine of the plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptures. If he had done 
this on his own authority, if he had declared 
his doctrines as he published his scientific dis- 



88 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

coveries, lie might have escaped the stigma of 
being a fanatic. But he was content to state 
the truth just as he received it. " His books 
are a dry, unimpassioned, unexaggerated expo- 
sition of the things he dailv saw and heard in 
the world of spirits, and of the . spiritual laws 
which these things illustrate, with scarcely any 
effort whatever to blink the obvious outrage his 
experiences offer to sensuous prejudice, or to 
conciliate any interest in his reader which is 
not prompted by the latter's own original and 
unaffected love of truth." And herein is the 
great proof of his mission, that no mere human 
intellect could have invented a system like the 
one he has developed. Nor has the man yet 
appeared, whose writings tend more to exalt the 
Divine Word above all other works of the Cre- 
ator. " The Word," he says, " is like a garden, 
which may be called a heavenly paradise, in 
which are delicacies and delights of every kind, 
delicacies from the fruits and delights from the 
flowers ; in the middle of which are trees of 
life, and beside them fountains of living water 
and around the garden are forest trees." 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 89 

At the commencement of these remarks, allu- 
sion is made to Mr. Greenleaf, the late Royall 
Professor of Law in Harvard University. We 
conclude them by a reference to the present 
Dane Professor of Law in the same university, 
who is the immediate successor of Mr. Justice 
Story, and who for forty years has been a reader 
of the writings of Swedenborg and a full believer 
in the doctrines of the New Church. He, too, 
has been a successful author of legal treatises. 
His works on Maritime Law, on Promissory 
Notes, on Mercantile Law, and his Laws of Busi- 
ness for Business Men are well known to the 
profession, while his greatest work, on the Law 
of Contracts, is a standard authority. He has 
frequently employed his pen in explanation and 
defence of his religious belief, and this brief 
attempt to call attention to Swedenborg's expo- 
sition of Scripture cannot be better concluded 
than by an extract from one of Mr. Parsons' 
essays i 1 — 

In former pages I have spoken of the correspond- 
ence between the world of matter and the world of 

1 Essays by Theqphilus Parsons. First Series. Fifth edition. 
Boston: 1862. 



90 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

spirit ; nor could I say aught of Life, or of Divine 
Providence, without recognizing this correspondence ; 
because only through it and by it have spiritual causes 
operated to produce material creation. The same 
causes always operate in the same way to preserve 
and perpetuate creation. All the powers and activities 
of nature, all its laws, its substances, its forms and 
changes, are at once the effect and the mirror of spirit- 
ual energies. 

But the effect of this correspondence which first 
meets an inquirer into the doctrines of the New Jeru- 
salem, is that which is manifested in the Word. He 
learns that this is written according to the laws of 
correspondence; that there is within the letter a spirit, 
within the body a soul. That the science of corre- 
spondence, being now revealed, interprets anew the 
Word of God, and discloses the spiritual truths which 
lie within the literal ; and he finds very soon, in the 
works of Swedenborg, in sermons, and other New 
Church compositions, passages of Scripture so ex- 
plained. The exceeding beauty of many of these 
explanations delights the imagination. The profound 
moral significance thus given to many texts, which in 
the letter " profit nothing," touches every heart that 
has any religious tendency ; the emotion of surprise 
and the charm of entire novelty make these explana- 
tions yet more attractive. An earnest desire to read 
in this way all the Scriptures is awakened ; and as yet 
the inquirer knows no reason why he may not learn to 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 91 

interpret them by the science of correspondence, just 
as he has learnt or seen others learn to interpret them 
from their original languages. The attempt is made ; 
but unexpected difficulties arise ; it is not found easy, 
and seems indeed very difficult ; and the disappoint- 
ment produces not only a feeling of uncertainty as to 
what correspondences are, but perhaps a doubt whether 
they are anything more than a mere ingenious fancy. 
If such a person happens to have some acquaintance 
with " Phrenology," he may think of the " organ of 
comparison," of which it is supposed to be the office 
and the delight to discern resemblances and analogies? 
and to construct parables and symbolic representations. 
Much of this has always been done ; but more in those 
Eastern lands, where the Old Testament and much of 
the New were written, than elsewhere; and he sup- 
poses the same faculty, existing in a high degree in 
Swedenborg, may have brought out many beautiful 
and striking results, without disclosing new principles 
or a new science. 

We have known readers to labor awhile under these 
difficulties, from which they are gradually relieved, as 
they begin to understand better the grounds, princi- 
ples and results of the science of correspondence. 
Some of the views and truths which may serve to 
make these difficulties press less heavily and pass the 
sooner away, I propose to present, very briefly. 

In the first place, then, I must repeat that the 



92 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

Science of Correspondence rests upon and springs from 
the Laws of Existence. The problem of Being pre- 
sents its most difficult question to the human mind in 
the inquiry how God created and creates, sustains and 
fills the world. The answer is, — from Himself, and 
in such wise that all things being linked together 
and to Him, are connected by a mutual interdependence, 
and by definite relations. The inmost of all things, 
is Love. And this in its various forms of affection, 
desire, and purpose, produces thought ; and thoughts 
clothe themselves in words. But the same power and 
providence which, from its own Love, supplies men 
with Love, makes the outward world also. All the 
energies, tendencies, and activities of the outward, ma- 
terial world, are derived from the same Love, and are 
images and forms which bear its impress and reveal 
its nature and operation. And not the laws and ener- 
gies of nature only, but .the substances and forms of 
this outward world, — all its material things, — are 
again effects and images of the same Love, and of the 
Divine Wisdom which springs from the Divine Love 
as men's thoughts do from their affections. Because 
the Divine Love is infinite and inexhaustible, and be- 
cause it is guided by an equal wisdom, it is able and 
disposed to come down even into the lowest things of 
nature, and form there what is needed for use; and 
accommodate itself in every stage of its descent, to all 
the subjects which it forms and fills. Being every- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 93 

where one and the same infinite thing, however vari- 
ously modified, all these subjects image it, reflect it, 
reveal it. And hence and thus, God is All in all. 

One consequence of this is, that the whole mate- 
rial world is representative and significant of the inner 
world of spirit, mind, and affection. And this not gen- 
erally only, but particularly ; not in a loose, poetical, 
imaginative sense, but strictly and most truly so, by its 
constitution and the very laws of its being. 

Another consequence is, that truths which relate to 
character, conduct, motive and life, may be imaged and 
represented by more external truths which relate to 
the things of the external world and have no apparent 
reference to duty ; and truths which in express terms 
prescribe laws of conduct of an external kind, may 
have within them other and higher laws of spiritual 
life. This is the way in which the Bible — the Word 
of God — is written. Not by the genius of man, 

nor through a thorough knowledge of the laws of cor- 

© © © 

respondence ; but by Divine Inspiration. Because 
written by Divine Inspiration, and for the purposes 
of Divine mercy, it is so written that its external truths 
are and for ever will remain the basis of all religious 
or genuine improvement, while, at the same time, they 
contain a distinct class of higher internal truths. This 
is effected by the laws of correspondence, and it is in 
exact conformity with those laws. Hence, too, these 
internal truths are in no sense a substitute for, and still 



94 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

less are they to be regarded as in the attitude of oppo- 
sition to the external truths. 

A large part of the Word, especially of the Old 
Testament, contains, in its literal sense, very little 
which has any discernible relation to conduct and char- 
acter; and of this part it can only be said now, that 
treasures of truths which have this relation are here 
stored up within the spiritual sense. But the greater 
portion contains, in the literal sense, truths or facts 
illustrative of truths, which are precisely those needed 
and best adapted to improve the conduct and external 
character. 

It is not difficult to understand that one truth and 
one kind of truth will operate beneficially upon a 
person in one state of mind and in one condition, 
and another truth upon a person in another state and 
condition. It is in this adaptation of truths, by various 
means, that the mercy and wisdom of God are mani- 
fested. Hence the vast diversity of religions ; and 
hence the variety in the instruction and amount of 
knowledge given to different individuals, in the same 
church or professing the same religion. This diversity 
depends upon differences of character, which, for the 
most part, are beyond our perception or comprehen- 
sion ; and, therefore, even if we have a general under- 
standing of the principles which must govern and direct 
this adaptation, we cannot always clearly comprehend 
the application of these principles to particular cases. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE CxOSPELS. 95 

But the principal and most general means of this adap- 
tation is the difference and mutual relation of the 'nat- 
ural and spiritual sen-es of the Word. Nor can it be 
difficult to obtain some clear views of the ground of 
difference between the external and the internal truths 
of the Bible. 

We must, in the first place, remember that the 
great purpose of the written Word, as of the incarnate 
Word, is, " to call sinners to repentance." Therefore 
it addresses itself first to sinners ; to those who indulge 
sinful propensities and feelings and have acquired sin- 
ful habits. It is perfectly obvious, that with persons 
as yet buried in the slough of sinfulness, motives of the 
most elevated and spiritual character have little or no 
power. Fear, and the hope of recompense, and caution 
and prudence are, in them, all that can be appealed to 
successfully. The external truths and commands of 
the Word make this appeal. They require the re- 
nouncing of sinful pleasures and the resisting of sinful 
propensities, under fearful penalties and with mag- 
nificent promises. If they prevail ; if the command be 
obeyed ; then the whole conduct is reformed ; then the 
various propensities to sin are weakened by resistance ; 
new states of mind and feeling grow up ; new capaci- 
ties of improvement by new means are developed ; for 
the mind can comprehend and the heart can feel new 
motives. Then the time has come when these new mo- 
tives can be presented by means of new truths ; and 
the new truths, which may supply new motives, are the 



96 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

internal truths of the Word ; and their relation to 
the external truths of the Word is such, that an obedi- 
ence to the literal commands of Scripture is the precise 
and appropriate preparation for listening to its spiritual 
commands. 

In fact, these commands may be called the same. 
The literal truth of the word is the same with its spir- 
itual truth ; but it is this truth brought down into lower 
forms, in order that it may thereby be adapted to 
lower states of thought and affection, and elevate them . 
and as these are elevated, the truth rises also, and the 
faint light of morning brightens into day. 

In considering the intellectual difficulties which op- 
pose a thorough learning of the science of correspond- 
ence, its extent should be regarded. For the spiritual 
truth of the Word, in its own nature infinite, can be 
adequately expressed by correspondent natural truths, 
only because the correspondence between spiritual and 
natural things is universal. This lower world is but 
a world of effects, of which the higher and inner spir- 
itual world is the world of causes. Every thing, every 
substance, every energy, every law of nature, is the 
effect of a spiritual cause to which it corresponds, and 
of which it is the expression and image. Hence the 
science of correspondence can never be fully known 
until the whole spiritual world, and all the natural 
world, and all the laws of mind and matter are fully 
known. That is, it can never be fully known ; because 
the condition of a healthy human mind, in this world 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 97 

and in the other, is one of eternal progress and im- 
provement. More is continually learnt of the love 
and wisdom of God as manifested in creation, and 
therefore more is continually learnt of the science of 
correspondence. But it follows, also, that all progress 
in the knowledge of this science assists all progress in 
other knowledge ; and, on the other hand, if the lead- 
ing principles of this science are rightly apprehended, 
all true knowledge promotes the better understanding 
of them, and of their use and application. 

Besides the extent of this science, there are other 
sources of difficulty. One of them is this. Whatever 
proceeds from the Source of being is in itself, and in 
its origin, good ; and yet there is much evil in the 
world ; because that which is good in its origin and 
essence is abused and perverted by man. Thus, Love, 
from Him w T ho is Love itself, entering into the will of 
man, becomes love, desire, affection, in him. But it 
becomes such desire or affection as the character of his 
will may make it ; and therefore love with evil men 
becomes love of self and hatred of others. In the 
same w 7 ay truth becomes falsehood. And whatever 
in the natural world corresponds to and signifies love 
or truth, may also be used to signify their opposites ; 
and sometimes the question, which of these is meant, 
may present a difficulty, although very generally the 
context makes it clear. 

Love and Wisdom, in their divine perfection and 
infinity, are the Lord ; and heat and light are their first 

7 



98 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

and most general representatives in nature. For these 
flow continually from the sun, which is the image of 
the Lord, and represents him in the work of creation. 
The whole material world is dependent upon and gov- 
erned by the sun, and everything in it stands in a 
definite relation to its heat and light ; and this relation 
corresponds to the relation between spiritual things 
and Love and Wisdom. Hence, as there is nothing 
in nature which does not stand in its own definite rela- 
tion to heat and light, so there is scarcely anything 
which may not be used to represent and indicate Love 
or Wisdom in some of their forms or operations. The 
difficulty of always distinguishing these, of always dis- 
cerning and applying aright the laws of the science of 
correspondence which relate to them, is similar to the 
difficulty we find in comprehending and classifying the 
things of nature, and acquiring a clear view of their 
natural causes, laws, and relations. 

But there is nothing in this or any difficulty, which 
diminishes the w r orth of the science of correspondence, 
or should operate as a reason for neglecting the study 
of it. It will be understood that we have spoken of 
these difficulties only in reference to the endeavor to 
acquire a thorough knowledge of the science. What 
is there of equal value which does not demand equal 
labor? But this same science offers itself at once to 
the most simple, as explaining much that was before 
hopelessly dark, and as giving life and utility to many 
passages of the Word which were but a dead letter. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 99 

Indeed, the science has never been wholly lost, and 
cannot be. Some of its results are so obvious that they 
force themselves upon every mind ; as for instance, the 
analogy between Love and Heat, and between Truth 
and Light. The very faculty of comparison, of which 
I have spoken in the beginning of these remarks, has 
always found its most delightful and elevating exercise 
in detecting and exhibiting these analogies. Poetry 
is full of them; and the loftiest and purest of all 
poetry is in the Bible, for the very reason that here 
the laws of correspondence exert their full influence. 
The proper function of the imagination is not to de- 
lude, or give to nothing the name of something. The 
Creator of man gives him no faculty of which the 
principal office is deception. We use our imagina- 
tion aright, when we look above the low plane of 
sensuous thought, and bring higher truths down within 
the reach of reason ; of reason in its childlike mood, 
loving to labor in the service of religion. The Ori- 
ental world, say critics and philosophers, was always 
characterized by a disposition to figurative and par- 
abolic expression ; and hence the Bible is full of it ! 
But the Bible is God's Word; and its fulness of 
symbolic language arises from its absolute conformity 
with the laws of correspondence. In the East, where, 
in the early ages of the world, the science which 
discloses these laws was well known, the remains of 
it, brought down by tradition, and the effect of it 
perpetuated through successive generations, have im- 



100 AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 

parted to the human mind in those regions that peculiar 
disposition. 

It is of some importance to discard from the mind 
the idea that the science of correspondence offers a new 
translation of the Bible to be learnt as others are. It 
is not as a foreign tongue that it is to be considered, 
for many reasons. In the first place, it is not, as we 
have already, said, all foreign. In many passages the 
symbolic character is manifest, and the spiritual mean- 
ing comes to the surface, and is and always has been 
universally recognized. There are very many others, 
indeed the greater part of Scripture, where the internal 
meaning may be distinctly discerned, after a little ac- 
quaintance with the principles of correspondence and 
some practice in applying them. Then, however, the 
work only begins. Because the laws of correspondence 
are among the essential laws of creation and existence, 
and because all creation images and reflects the infinite 
attributes of the Creator, therefore the science of cor- 
respondence is itself infinite, and progress in it will be 
eternal. Therefore greater meaning and more fulness, 
variety and force of meaning will be discovered and 
constantly again discovered in the most familiar pas- 
sages, as they are considered in connection with others, 
and in their relation to various laws of mind and of 
matter. 

One thing should always be remembered in the 
study of this science. It is not a merely natural 
science. It is not one which stands disconnected from 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPELS. 101 

the will and the life. No science, and no truth, needs 
to be so disconnected ; for there is no knowledge of 
anything in the universe of God which should not point 
the way and lift the soul to Him. The time is coming 
when all the paths of truth will be found leading 
upwards to their origin. But other sciences may be so 
disconnected. This cannot be. The one thing which 
it teaches is the correspondence of the whole material 
world with the spirit-world; and its application to 
Scripture gives moral instructiveness and religious 
force to every passage. 




LIST 



OF THE 



WORKS OF SWEDENBORG, 



LITEKARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 

1709—1745. 

1709. — L. Annsei Senecae et Pub. Syri Mimi forsan et aliorum 
Selectae Sententiae. Quas notis illustratas edidit 
Emanuel Swedberg [Swedenborg]. At fidem 
rarissimse editionis principis anni 1709 denuo publici 
juris fecit et fragmenta nuper reperta adjecit Dr. J. 
F. E. Tafel. Tubingse : 1841. — The first edition 
was published at Upsala in 1709. 

1710. — Ludus Heliconius, sive Carmina Miscellanea, quae 
variis in locis cecinit Eman. Swedberg [Sweden- 
borg]. Edit, iii., emendata et locupletata recensuit. 
Dr. J. F. Eman. Tafel. Tubingae: 1841. — The first 
edition was published at Skara in 1710. 

1715. — Camena Borea cum Heroum et Heroidum factis 
ludens: sive Eabellae Ovidianis similes cum variis 
nominibus scriptae ab Eman. Swedberg [Sweden- 
borg]. Ad fidem editionis principis anno 1715. 
Gryphiswaldiae excusa denuo edidit Dr. Jo. Fr. Em. 
Tafel Tubingse : 1845. 

[103] 



104 swedenborg's works. 

1716, 1717, 1718. — Daedalus Hyperboreus, sive Nova Experi- 
menta Mathematica et Physica. Upsaliae : 1716, 

1717, 1718. 4to. 

This work, consisting of new experiments in mathe- 
matics and physics, by Swedenborg and several of his 
scientific friends, was published in six parts, all of 
which are in Swedish; but the fifth part has a Latin 
version also. 

1718. — Foersoek, att finna Oestra och Westra Laengden igen, 
igenom Manan. Upsala : 1718. 8vo, pp. 38. 

Attempts to find the Longitude of Places by Lunar 
Observations. 

This is the original Swedish edition of the work 
subsequently published in Latin at Amsterdam in 
1721, of which a second edition was printed about the 
year 1766. 

1718. — Pegel-Konsten forfatted i Tijo Bokker, &c. Upsala: 

1718. 8vo, pp. 135. 

Algebra, or the Art of Rules, comprised in ten 
books, &c. 

1719. — Om Wattnens Hoegd, och foerra Werldens starka Ebb 
och Plod, Be wis utur Swerige. Stockholm : 1719. 
8vo, pp. 40. 

Arguments derived from Appearances in Sweden 
in Pavor of the Depth of the Waters and Greater 
Tides of the Sea in the Ancient World. 

1719. — De Monetarum Mensurarumque Ordinatione Deci- 
mali. 

On the Decimal System of Moneys and Measures, 
to facilitate Calculation, and abolish Fractions. This 
work was published in Swedish, with the following 
title, " Forslag till vach Myrts och Mais Indelning." 
Upsala : 1719. 4to. In the Catalogue of the Upsala 
Library, another edition of this work in octavo, 
1795, is mentioned. 



swedenborg's works. 105 

1719. — Om Jordenes och Planeternas Gang och Stand. Skara : 
1719. 

On the Motion and Position of the Earth and 
Planets. 

1721. — Specimens of a work on the Principles of Natural 
Philosophy, comprising new attempts to explain the 
Phenomena of Chemistry and Physics by Geometry. 
Amsterdam : 1721. 

1721. — New Observations and Discoveries respecting Iron and 
Eire, and particularly respecting the Elemental 
Nature of Fire : together with a new Construction of 
Stoves. Amsterdam : 1721. 

1721. — A New Mechanical Plan of constructing Docks and 

Dykes. Amsterdam : 1721. 

1721. — A Mode of discovering the Powers of Vessels by the 
application of Mechanical Principles. Amsterdam : 
1721. 

1722. — Miscellanea Observata. Miscellaneous Observations 

connected with the Physical Sciences. Parts i.-iii. 
Leipzig, 1722 ; Part iv., SchifTbeck, near Hamburg. 

1734. — Opera Philosophica et Mineralia. 3 vols., folio. Dres- 
den and Leipzig : 1734. 

The first volume, called the " Principia," is trans- 
lated into English under the following title : The 
Principia, or the Eirst Principles of Natural Things ; 
being new attempts toward a Philosophical Explana- 
tion of the Elementary World. Eirst English tran- 
slation. London : 1846. 

1734. — Prodromus Philosophise Ratiocinantis de Infinito, et 
Causa Einali Creationis, deque Mechanismo Opera- 
tions Animae et Corporis. Dresdae etLipsiae: 1734. 
Outlines of a Philosophical Argument on the Infi- 
nite, and the Einal Cause of Creation ; and on the 
Intercourse between the Soul and the Body. 



106 swedenborg's works. 

1740-1. — (Economia Kegni Animalis, anatomice, physice, et 
philosophice perlustratum. Amsterdam : 1740-1. 

The Economy of the Animal Kingdom considered 
anatomically, physically, and philosophically. 

1744-5. — Regnum Animale, anatomice, physice, et philosophice 
perlustratum. Vols, i., ii. Hagae Cometum : 1744. 
Vol. iii. Londini : 1745. 

The Animal Kingdom considered anatomically, 
physically, and philosophically. 

1745. - De Cultu et Amore Dei. Londini : 1745. 
On the Worship and Love of God. 



POSTHUMOUS WORKS. 

Clavis Hieroglyphica Arcanorum Naturalium et 
Spiritualium, per Viam Repraesentationum et Corres- 
pondentiarum. Opus posthumum. 

A Hieroglyphic Key to Natural and Spiritual 
Mysteries. 

Opuscula quaedam Argumenti Philosophici. 

Posthumous Tracts. 

(Economia Regni Animalis. Pars iii. Londini: 
1847. 

Regnum Animale, Partes iv., vi., and vii. Tubin- 
gse : 1848, 1849. 

Part vi. translated under the title, " Generative 
Organs ; " published in London 1852. 






swedenborg's works. 107 



THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 

Written in Latin between the year 1745, at the age of fifty-seven, 
and his death in 1771, at the age of eighty -three. 

1756. — Arcana Coelestia. Heavenly Mysteries contained in 
the Sacred Scriptures, or Word of the Lord, un- 
folded : first, those which are in Genesis ; and, sec- 
ondly, those which are in Exodus. Together with 
Wonderful Things seen in the World of Spirits and 
in the Heaven of Angels. 8 vols., 4to. London : 
1749-1756. 

1758. — Of Heaven and its Wonders, and of Hell, — from things 
heard and seen. London : 1758. 

1758. — Of the Last Judgment, and Babylon destroyed ; show- 
ing that all the Predictions in the Apocalypse are at 
this day fulfilled, — from things heard and seen. 
London: 1758. 

A Continuation concerning the Last Judgment and 
the Spiritual World. 

1758. — Of the White Horse mentioned in the Apocalypse, 
chap. xix. ; with references to the Arcana Coelestia 
on the subject of the " Word " and its spiritual or 
internal sense. London : 1758. 

1758. — Of the Earths in our Solar System, which are called 
Planets, and of the Earths in the Starry Heavens ; 
of their Inhabitants ; and of Spirits and Angels there ; 
from things heard and seen. London : 1758. 

1758. — Of the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, 
from Things heard out of Heaven. To which is 
prefixed something concerning the New Heaven 
and the New Earth. London : 1758. 

1763. — Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the 
Divine Wisdom. Amsterdam : 1763. 



108 swedenborg's works. 

1763. — The Four Leading Doctrines of the New Church, sig- 
nified . by the New Jerusalem, in the Apocalypse, 
chap. xxi. : being those of the Lord, His Divine and 
Human Natures, and the Divine Trinity ; the Sacred 
Scripture ; Faith and Life ; Continuation concerning 
the Last Judgment, and the Destruction of Babylon. 
Amsterdam : 1763. 

1764. — Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Providence. 
Amsterdam : 1764. 

1766. — The Apocalypse Revealed ; wherein are disclosed the 
Arcana which have there been foretold, and which 
have hitherto remained hidden. Amsterdam : 1766. 

1768. — The Delights of Wisdom concerning Conjugial Love ; 

after which follow the Pleasures of Insanity concern- 
ing Scortatory Love. Amsterdam: 1766. 

1769. — A Summary Exposition of the Doctrine of the New 

Church, signified by the New Jerusalem in the 
Apocalypse. Amsterdam : 1769. 

1769. — Of the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, 
which is supposed to be effected either by Physical 
Influx, or by Spiritual Influx, or by Pre-established 
Harmony. Amsterdam : 1769. 

1771. — The True Christian Religion, containing the Universal 
Theology of the New Church, foretold by the Lord 
in Daniel, chap, vii., 13, 14 ; and in the Apocalypse, 
chap, xxi., 1, 2. Amsterdam : 1771. 

The theological works of Swedenborg, published in his life- 
time, comprise, when taken together, an amount equal to about 
twenty-seven volumes octavo, of five hundred pages each ; 
twenty volumes of which are employed in explaining the spirit- 
ual sense of the Sacred Scriptures. 






swedenborg's works. 109 



POSTHUMOUS WORKS. 

These were deposited in the library of the Royal Academy of 
Sciences at Stockholm. Many of them have since been edited and 
published by the late Dr. J. F. E. Tafel, Professor and Librarian 
in the University of Tubingen. 

The Coronis, or Appendix to the True Christian Religion; 
treating of the four churches on this earth since the creation 
of the world, and of their periods and consummation ; of the 
New Church about to succeed them, which will be truly Chris- 
tian, and the crown of the preceding churches ; of the coming 
of the Lord to that Church, and of His Divine auspices therein 
to eternity ; and of the Mystery of Redemption, with a brief 
Continuation. 

The Apocalypse Explained, according to the spiritual sense ; 
in which are revealed the Arcana, which are there predicted, 
and have been hitherto deeply hidden. 

Of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom (appended to 
the Apocalypse Explained). 

The Athanasian Creed. 

A Summary Exposition of the Internal Sense of the Pro- 
phetic Books and of the Psalms of the Old Testament, to 
which have been added some things concerning the historical 
parts of the Word. 

The Divine Personality, Incarnation, and Glorification of 
the Lord ; with a Critical Analysis of the Athanasian Creed. 

The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning Charity. 

The Canons ; or, Entire Theology of the New Church : 
Concerning the One and Infinite God ; concerning the Lord 
the Redeemer; and concerning Redemption; concerning the 
Holy Spirit ; concerning the Divine Trinity. 

Swedenborg's Spiritual Diary. 



E. B. MYERS & CHANDLER, 

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87, WASHINGTON STREET, CHICAGO, 

Are prepared to supply the public a?id the trade 

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THE WORKS 

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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, 

Both Scientific and Theological, 

IN THE (ORIGINAL) LATIN, ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, 
AND SWEDISH LANGUAGES. 



" I remember nothing in Lord Bacon superior, few passages equal, either in 
depth of thought, or in richness, dignity, and felicity of diction, or in the 
mightiness of the truths contained in these articles (Swedenborg's). I can ven- 
ture to assert, that, as a Moralist, Swedenborg is above all praise ; and that, 
as a Naturalist, Psychologist, and Theologian, he has strong and varied claims 
on the gratitude and admiration of the professional and philosophical facul- 
ties." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

" His (Swedenborg's) writings would be a sufficient library to a lonely and 
athletic student. Not every man can read them ; but they will reward him 
who can. The grandeur of the topics makes the grandeur of the style. One 
of the missouriums and mastodons of literature, he is not to be measured by 
whole colleges of ordinary scholars." — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

"There is one grand and beautiful idea underlying all his revelations 
or speculations about the future life. . . . His remarkably suggestive books 
are becoming familiar to the reading and reflecting portion cf the community. 
They are not unworthy of study." — John Greenleaf Whittier 



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If it lead any to form an acquaintance with the writings of "the most 
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be the greatest reproach of these times that the works of Swedenborg lay in 
our midst and only a few men cared for them. Happily, this number is stead- 
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the fact, that Swedenborg was, without exception, the most gifted and extra- 
ordinary man that has ever lived. — Preface. 

LIFE: ITS NATURE, VARIETIES, AND PHE- 
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Botany at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester. 1 
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To those who care for the illustration which physical science casts upon 
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Full of beauty and full of wisdom : a reverent recognition of the handi- 
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< HRHE LITTLE THINGS OF NATURE,' considered 

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OUR ETERNAL HOMES. By a Bible Student 
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Do the Departed forget us? VI. Man's Book of Life. 
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HE ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. By Mary 
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